AAC
Integration is how you treat the voice
Augmentative and alternative communication is speech. Core words are the grammar. Fringe is the life. A dedicated talker comes first if they have one.
How lists get made
Every method is a way of looking, and a way of going blind. Stack them. Do not crown one.
Turn on the methods you actually use. The analysis is of the stack, not of a winner.
This stack
A workable stack
Frequency for grammar. Functions as a test. Their people and their own sample for fringe. Add phrases for speed, and spelling when it can come. Do not let activity pages evict the core map.
- Phrases would make the fast sentences cheaper.
Request-only protocols
PECS-style exchange, snack menus, “use your words” for objects. Fine as one tiny slice. As the whole method it is a vending machine: they can fetch, they cannot refuse, comment, or tell you to stop. Do not hold the wanted thing hostage until a button is pressed.
How core is chosen
Not by cuteness. Not by age. By how often a word returns, how many jobs it can do, and whether the person can refuse as well as ask.
01
How often it is used
A few hundred words do most of the talking. I, you, not, want, this, go, more — they return in every room. Nouns come and go with the day.
02
How many jobs it can do
Want works for a biscuit, a person, and quiet. If a word only works at snack time, it is fringe, not core.
03
What kinds of meaning
Ask, refuse, comment, be with someone, name a feeling, leave. A board of snacks can only ask. That is a vending machine.
04
Keep core still
Hands learn where a word lives. Moving “not” to make room for a new character breaks the motor plan. Add fringe around core. Do not evict core.
05
Fringe is their life
Names, a special interest, a place, a sensory word they actually use. Chosen with them, not from a cute sticker sheet. Fringe may change. Core should not.
06
What you leave off is a choice
This backup has no what, is, or and. That is honesty, not a full language. A robust talker needs hundreds of core words, plus alphabet, plus their fringe.
What can this board say
Tap a job. The words that can do it stay lit. The rest dim.
People
Do
Help
Answer
Sense
Why this word
not
Refuse and correct. Do not swap this for a noun.
not / loud
A vending board
You can ask for a thing. You cannot say I, not, stop, feel, this is loud, or go home. Cute nouns ate the grammar.
Your fringe
Up to 6 personal words — a name, an interest, a place. They sit around core. They do not replace not or stop.
How often a word returns
Frequency is a count, from samples. It tells you which words work across rooms. It does not tell you to evict stop for the.
01
A few words do most of the work
In one often-cited toddler sample, 23 words made up about 96% of the tokens the children used. In preschool talk, the 250 most common words have been found to cover about 85%. Adults are usually cited around 200–400 words for about 80% of what is said.
02
Order is a clue, not a law
The list below is the Banajee order: I, then no, then yes. It is one sample, of speaking toddlers, in English, in the United States. It is not a prescription, and it is not a test the person in front of you has to match.
03
Frequency is not the only test
The and a sit high on the list and do little on a twenty-word board. Stop, like, and quiet sit lower, or not at all, and do work this board needs. A robust talker still wants is, it, what, and hundreds more.
04
Tokens are not whole sentences
High token coverage does not mean a short list can say everything. A 23-word list still leaves most full utterances needing something else. Kindred’s twenty is a backup. It is not 80% of a life.
Toddler frequency order
Banajee and colleagues, 2003. Longest bar is the word that showed up most in that sample. Sage means Kindred kept it. Dim means we left it off this backup.
I is on Kindred’s twenty. It earned a seat from frequency and from the job it does.
High frequency, left off
the
Glue. Extremely common. Weak as a first button.
a
Same job as the. Keep it on a 400-word talker.
is
Builds sentences. Too big a gap to pretend a backup has it.
it
A useful pointer. This and that do some of that work here.
what
Questions matter. Named gap. A robust talker needs who, where, why too.
my
Possession. Mine is on the toddler list. We did not keep a seat.
How much of a sentence is core
Sage is on Kindred’s twenty. A quiet ring is on the toddler frequency list only. The rest is fringe, or a gap.
Iwantmore
3 of 3 on Kindred’s twenty. 3 of 3 on the toddler list.
Board layout
A mock-up of one board. Read it left to right: people, then the action, then a describing word or a thing. Colour marks the job of the word. The word is still written on the cell. Fewer words covers cells. It does not move them. Nothing speaks on tap. This does not replace a robust talker.
Tap words. They collect here. Nothing speaks until you ask.
Topics
Topics can change. The grid under them does not.
- People
- Actions
- Describing
- Things
- With someone
- Other
Covers some cells when the full grid is too much. It does not slide the words that remain.
Turn this on if you are the partner, not the person whose voice this is.
How you treat the voice
01 · Access
Keep it in reach
A talker that is in a bag, on charge in another room, or taken away as punishment is not communication. It is a locked door. The board or device stays with the person, including when they are angry.
02 · Input
Model, don’t test
Aided language input means you use the board while you talk — “we / go / home” — without waiting for them to copy. Modeling is rain, not a quiz. Demand-free input is how language grows.
03 · Trust
Honour the output
What comes off the device, the board, the keyboard, or the card is the sentence. Do not make them “say it with your mouth too”. Do not talk to the iPad. Talk to the person.
04 · Language
More than requesting
If the only buttons are snack, toilet, and more, you have built a vending machine, not a voice. People also need to protest, comment, ask, joke, tell you to stop, and say I love this.
05 · Both
Many ways at once
Speech, typing, cards, gesture, and a device can sit in the same hour. Using a board does not mean they “gave up talking”. Taking one method away so they will use another is not therapy. It is withholding language.
06 · Low-tech
A quiet backup
Batteries die. Apps crash. Classrooms get loud. A paper board, a hold-up card, a keyboard, or a yes/no still counts. Practise the backup on a calm day, not only in a crisis.
07 · Together
Partner-assisted scanning
If pointing is hard, you offer choices slowly — “loud, or quiet?” — and they indicate. Wait. Do not jump to the answer you expected. Scanning is access, not a game of hot-and-cold.
08 · Time
Wait longer than feels polite
Building a sentence on a board takes time. Count well past the urge to finish it for them. Repeat the question once, the same way. Then be quiet.
Methods that harm
- Do not take the device or board as punishment.
- Do not require oral speech after AAC.
- Do not hover with “use your words” or “say it on your talker”.
- Do not only program requests for food and objects.
- Do not hold a wanted thing hostage until they press a button.
- Do not speak about them to the room while they are composing.
- Do not evict not, stop, or I to make room for a character name.
Hold-up cards are low-tech AAC too. Open the pack. Longer version in Learn.