These are the main instructions for the activities. Use this with the games below.

Key strategies - you may need to come back to these as and when necessary:

Introduce each food item;

Check which ones the people are interested in;

Demonstrate the asking for and getting of an item - e.g. with another member of staff;

Wait - give time for the person to respond or initiate;

Offer a "forced alternative", e.g. "apple or orange?" - swap around the order in which you give the alternatives to check that the person is not just saying the last thing you say;

Make it difficult for the person to communicate by pointing by having the choices close together and out of reach - so if they point you actually don't know which one they pointed to;

Be sensitive to if the person is getting frustrated - think of ways to help them get it right first time - e.g. by reducing the choice down to one item (temporarily).

Using forced alternatives:

Always give the person the thing they said/signed for. If they are having difficulties with this - for example they always say the last thing in the alternative, try the following:

Have one of the forced alternatives being something uninteresting (e.g. the piece of paper);

Have the last alternative as something the person doesn't want (if the person always says the last thing);

Give more emphasis to the desired item, e.g. "Banana or paper?", you could also try only signing the desired item. Over time, reduce the difference in emphasis.

Improving clarity

Sometimes the person may say/sign what they want, but you don't feel it is clear enough (perhaps you can understand it in this context but might not be able to in another situation). To try and improve this, you can try:

Saying 'pardon?' or something equivalent;

Look confused and say, for example '(Do you mean) apple or banana?' (saying and signing these) - this will often encourage the person to produce a clearer version;

Simply re-inforce with the clear version, e.g. you say "Oh, banana" (saying and signing it then passing it over);

Try to avoid simply asking the someone to repeat after you as there is no communication and it's not a natural way to communicate - by asking someone to repeat you have shown them that you have understood, and so this is now a different repetition activity (and perhaps a bit insulting!) - it also has the danger that it could reduce the accuracy of what they originally said or signed as they didn't get a direct result from this.