Decision-making Guides for Autistic People

When making choices feels challenging, decision-making guides can help autistic people determine a course of action.  

Executive function is the set of cognitive skills crucial for task planning, initiation, completion, and more. Autistic people of any age can can require more time or energy with executive function, which can change depending on factors like how a person feels, what’s happening around them, and how much time they have to decide. 

When we need extra support, decision-making guides can help us get back on track so we can do what we want to do. 

What are decision-making guides?

Decision-making guides are simple access aids that support us in being able to make our own choices. They’re structured, often visual tools like charts, pictures, and boards used to break complex choices into smaller, more manageable steps, avoiding unnecessary cognitive overload and stress. Often, they use plain language, a form of communication that’s simple and easy to understand, and extra-large text is surrounded by plenty of white space. 

How can they be helpful to autistic people?

Supported decision-making like this gives us support and agency and minimizes misunderstandings. They can be an excellent way to support autistic people without infringing on their autonomy or making choices for them. This makes it easier to advocate for ourselves and participate in our communities by promoting understanding, confidence-building, and fairness. 

If you have someone with you to help with supported decision-making, you can break down the process into these steps:  

1. Clarify the decision and where the decision-maker is at in the decision-making process 
   • This helps reduce overwhelm by naming what the decision actually is and recognizing whether you’re just beginning to think about it or getting close to choosing. 
2. Identify options 
   • Laying out the available options makes the choice feel more tangible and ensures possibilities aren’t overlooked, especially when everything feels jumbled. 
3. Weigh pros and cons of each option 
   • Seeing benefits and drawbacks written out can make abstract thoughts clearer and supports more confident, informed decision‑making. 
4. Rate importance of each pro and con 
   • This centers what matters most to you, helping prioritize values, needs, and preferences rather than treating every factor as equally important. 
5. Think about who else is involved in making the decision and their views on the decision, whether they’re supportive or not 
   • Considering other people’s views can prepare you for conversations, set expectations, and help you decide how much weight outside opinions should have. 
6. Determine where you’re having difficulty making a decision 
   • Pinpointing challenges makes it easier to get the right support. 
7. Create an action plan for moving forward 
   • Turning the decision into clear next steps provides structure and momentum, making it easier to follow through at your own pace.

Making these guides available to autistic people of all ages, not just children, is important for supporting our agency and decision-making capacity. 

What is decision-making capacity?

Decision-making capacity is a person’s ability to understand information relevant to making a personal decision and the foreseeable consequences of the decision. It can ebb and flow throughout the lifespan, and each autistic experience with decision-making capacity is unique. Providers interested in a decision-making capacity toolkit can check out this resource by Covenant Health. 

What is supported decision-making?

Supported Decision Making (SDM) gives autistic people a way to make choices about their own lives with support from a team of people they choose, often individuals they know and trust. It’s important to stay flexible while navigating SDM processes to suit each person’s needs.   

“This approach respects the rights and autonomy of people with disabilities while acknowledging that they may need support to understand options, communicate their choices, and manage the consequences of those decisions,” says InclusionBC’s free online course, Building an Inclusive BC.  

A supported decision-making agreement, which is usually completed before the decision-making process starts, can set up autistic adults for more success as well. 

Supported decision-making agreements and decision-making guides are separate from representation agreements, which are legally binding and governed under BC’s Representation Agreement Act. 

Examples of decision-making guides

They can be adapted, but these resources give an idea of what decision-making guides can look like and how they can be used. 

• Ottawa Personal Decision Guide
  • For one
  • As completed by the student 
  • A blank, interactive version 
  • Other versions
• Ottawa Personal Decision Guide for Two 
• 7 Steps to Effective Decision-Making | UMass Dartmouth 
• ASSIST: A decision-making guide | Kingston Health Sciences Centre 

How do I use decision-making guides?

Whether you’re using them yourself as an autistic person or providing support as a non-autistic (allistic) ally, learning to use decision-making guides can make a big difference. 

Here are some simple steps to follow:  

• Find what works for you/the autistic person you’re supporting 
  • Explore different options, try them out, and play around with various types of decision-making guides and tools before picking what you find most beneficial  
• Introduce the tools to the people in your life and explain why and how they help you 
  • If you need augmented and alternative communication tools to express this, that is a valid and important access need. Explanations can happen not only verbally, but as written text, pictographs, sign language, body language, and more. 
• If you need someone to introduce the tools to people in your life for you, request access support from somebody you trust and share what you want them to pass on 
• Allow extra time for processing as you move from one step to the next 
  • It’s okay to need more time, space, and thinking before you decide. Just remember this tool is meant to support you, not pressure you or make you feel worse 
• Practice using them 
  • See where the decision-making guides help and where they don’t and note your findings somewhere you can review them later. This way, you can learn which situations you might want them in and which you won’t need them for. That learning can allow us to support ourselves better and ask for more meaningful support from our loved ones 
• Start with daily living tasks that can be hard for you to get started on, see how useful these tools are, and then expand using decision-making guides into other areas of your life 
• Consider bringing them into professional and academic spaces, access allowing. Not everyone will be supported in using these tools due to ableism within work and school environments. However, if you’re safe and encouraged to use them, decision-making guides can greatly smooth the experience of moving through the day

What kinds of decision-making tools have you found useful as an autistic person or supporter of an autistic person? We’d love to include your thoughts in our resources. Contact us to share.