This function gives you a nice boolean to use in scripts.
use Aws\DynamoDb\Exception\ResourceNotFoundException; // <-- make sure this line is at the top
    public function TableExists($tableName) {
    $ddb = DynamoDbClient::factory(array('region' => 'us-east-1')); // EC2 role security
    try {
        $result = $ddb->describeTable(array(
            "TableName" => $tableName
        ));
    } catch (ResourceNotFoundException $e) {
        // if this exception is thrown, the table doesn't exist
        return false;
    }
    // no exception thrown? table exists!
    return true;
}
Hopefully this complete working code helps some of you.