At what age do you start communicating your needs? What you see around you helps you reach for things. Helps you make decisions about how you like to spend your time. Things that you can’t see can be talked about but out of reach. Photographs of places and people and objects that others like often get provided to you in the form of birthday presents or outings to places that you might like. Trips with parents / grandparents or carers around the shops can make you think differently about how you would like to spend your own money. Visiting preschools and friends homes makes it harder to enjoy your own things sometimes. The quantity of equipment that can be available can make you spend more time online and looking at things that you can interact with, because you can touch the button on an iPad / phone to direct the object as a form of play / social interaction.
Students who have difficulty regulating themselves may go to great extremes to find or interact with the things that they want to e.g. tops of fridges, tops of swing sets in the backyard, up a set of shelves in the classroom or onto the roof of the house.
I want. I need. I don’t want. I don’t like.
If I put myself in the right position at the right time do I get something? If I ask enough times of my parent do I get some more / some more turns before we leave?