Here’s an adapted confession booklet I made for my son and his friends in our Special Needs Atrium. When it was time to prepare my son for First Confession, I knew he would need a lot of visual aids in order to understand what the sacrament was about and in order to communicate his sins and his contrition to the priest. So I designed this especially for children who are non-verbal or whose speech is limited and still emerging.

The aim of this booklet is to help children with special needs to complete the five steps to receiving the sacrament of penance worthily, while promoting as much independence as possible. These steps are:

1. Examine your Conscience
2. Be sorry for your sins
3. Make up your mind not to sin again
4. Confess your sins to the priest
5. Do the penance the priest tells you to do

All of these steps are visually supported with pictures and simple text.

At the same time, I carefully chose pictures and art work to make the reception of the sacrament not just a procedure, but sincere acts of the heart: of sorrow for one’s sins, love for Our Lord, and gratitude.

Here are some sample pages:

Examination of conscience:

Sorrow for one’s sins:

Resolving not to sin again:

Steps to guide the child in the confessional:

Reminder to do one’s penance:

I also included some prayers that the priest might ask the child to say for penance. For example:

Finally, I included a visual aid that could be used during confession. If needed, the priest asks each question, and the child can point to “yes” or “no”. For example:

This last visual aid is one that the parent can print and cut out prior to confession, if the priest is amenable to using it:

After confessing his/her sins, the child can give the priest the picture of the broken heart as a sign of repentance. Then, after the prayers of absolution, the priest can give the child the picture of the heart and cross. This may help the child process and understand that Christ has forgiven his/her sins. This is especially helpful for children with poor auditory processing who benefit from visual aids to support comprehension.

Download the Adapted Confession Booklet here for FREE:

Interested in more religious education resources for kids with Down Syndrome and other special needs? Visit my page on Religious Resources for Children with Down Syndrome.

You can find my free original confession booklet here: A Confession Prayerbook for Children.