If you have a communication device or have just selected one for an individual or your classroom, choosing what vocabulary to put on it and how it should be displayed can be difficult. Having a vision of where you are going in terms of language development and alternative/augmentative communication is essential and can help you plan and prepare appropriate materials. Here are a few ideas you might like to try:

Scene based displays

For younger children or early communicators, a more natural way of displaying vocabulary is in scenes rather than grids. From an early age, children learn to point to pictures in books and people in photographs to make others attend to them. Now with your communication device, when a part of a picture is touched, a relevant message can be spoken.

Children find such displays interesting, motivating and relevant to their everyday lives. The Tech/128 lends itself easily to scene based displays.

Try using with photographs of your family, house, classroom, friends or composite pictures of jungles, playgrounds or street scenes – you can even use pictures that are particularly motivating e.g. Tweenies, Thomas the Tank Engine or Dr Who!

Literacy aids

Children love hearing their favourite stories read over and over again. Many of our children also need lots of repetition to help their understanding. Why not use a voice output device to make simple talking books that your child can use to ‘read’ independently?

Speech sets and overlays can also be set up with the main vocabulary so that your child can tell you the story in their own words, answer questions about it or just tell you their favourite bit.

The Go Talk 9+ and Go Talk 20+ are ideal literacy resource tools for your school library or home.

Play sounds and symbolic noises

Some of the earliest ‘words’ children learn to say are actually symbolic noises, e.g. for duck, they say “quack, quack”. When first introducing AAC, try providing some of these noises on the voice output device during play activities, e.g. in the home corner, with cars and garages or farm/zoo play sets. Older users may enjoy silly noises or music clips that provoke a reaction.

The Partner/Two and iTalk2 are ideal for this.

Singing

Songs and music also play an important part in developing communication skills. Why not try recording lines of nursery rhymes, school songs and hymns, TV theme tunes or pop music into your device so that everyone can join in and enjoy?

Core Vocabulary

When we are planning what to put on a communication aid we are often driven by the immediate needs of the activity, e.g. choosing colours or snacks. Staff/carers end up making board after board of words and symbols to address each activity need. The boards are often just made up of nouns, giving very little opportunity for varied language learning experiences.

Try providing a set of vocabulary that is based on normal early language development and is useful across a broad range of activities. The aim is to give a person more communicative power than just making simple choices.

Tip: choose words that perform different functions, e.g. greetings, requests for assistance or recurrence, comments, rejections, directing others etc.

Some suggestions:

Try putting your core vocabulary onto your communication device and have extended or activity specific vocabulary in a low tech book format.  If you use the Tech/Talk or Tech/Speak devices, your extended vocabulary can also be stored on the other levels.