Communication boards and communication books are popular low tech AAC resources which allow users to make choices, comment on what is going on around them, make requests and ask and answer questions. You can now create and customise both of these with ease using the Twinkl Symbols for AAC app where you can have access to our huge range of over 8,000 professionally designed and illustrated symbols.
Communication Boards
Communication boards are single ‘pages’ of symbols that often have a theme or specific purpose e.g. a snack themed communication board may contain a range of different food and drink symbols, plus the symbols ‘I want’, ‘more’, ‘finished’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
There are a variety of templates and ready made boards available on the app which can be a useful starting point when creating your own communication boards. Your resources can be saved and easily found again via the ‘My Boards’ section of the app for use at a later date.
Creating a Communication Board
To create your own communication board, tap the ‘Create’ button on the main menu, then tap ‘Create Board’. Select the type of board you’d like to create and then the specific template that you’d like to use. Find a symbol cell you’d like to add a symbol to and click on the ‘Enter text …’ bar beneath. Type in the word you wish to symbolise and the symbol will automatically appear in the cell above or you can tap on the cell itself and search through the symbols on the app. Here you can also change the colour of the background of the cell and select for the symbol to be displayed in black and white if this is your preference.
Once you’ve added symbols to your communication board, press the save button on the left of the screen, type in the name of your board and press save. This board can now be found in the ‘My Boards’ section of the app.
Communication Books
A communication book is a collection of communication boards that are all linked together so a user can access commonly used symbols and sentence starters and also move between different themed boards to offer a more expanded vocabulary, create more extended sentences and seamlessly move between activities. Communication boards in the Twinkl Symbols for AAC app can be organised and configured to meet the needs of individual users using a range of different board templates and also features a speech bar at the bottom of the screen which can be read aloud at the touch of a button.
Communication books can be created and personalised in the same way as communication boards by clicking on individual cells and adding your choice of symbol by pressing the ‘Edit Page’ button on the left of the screen and then ‘Save Page’ once changes have been made. You’re also able to change the sequence of pages on the right hand side of the screen by pressing ‘Manage Pages’.
Whilst in communication book mode:
- The symbol content in the centre of the page will display the selected page from the communication book. Symbols pressed in this main area are added to the speech bar and will be read aloud when pressed if the page is not muted.
- The grey strip on the right hand side of the screen will display the available pages or communication boards that you can move between. You can choose to add as many or as few pages as you like, adding a label, symbol and background colour as you wish.
- The orange bar running along the bottom of the screen is where symbols will appear and build up sequentially to make a sentence when pressed. All symbols added to the speech bar are spoken in order when the "Speak" button is pressed (the speak button changes to ‘Stop’ whilst speaking, to allow the user to stop the speech whilst it is in progress). The speech bar can be cleared by pressing the clear button on the right hand side of the speech bar, or individual symbols removed by selecting a symbol on the bar.
Navigation, settings and control buttons
These can be found in the top corners of the screen.
- Back - takes you back to the previous screen.
- Lock/unlock - locks and unlocks the board, optionally requiring passing an adult lock check if this setting is enabled.
- Copy Book - duplicates this book and saves it as a new book (if you want to make multiple similar books).
- Edit Page - enables editing of the page (board) shown on screen.
- Manage Pages - add, edit, remove and reorder pages in the book.
- Share Book - enables the sharing of the book by saving it to files which can then be sent to another person or device.
- Print - allows you to print the communication board on screen or print from the Type2Talk mode.
- Mute/Unmute Page - enables/disables the reading aloud of symbols when symbols are pressed within the main part of the page. In both modes symbols will still be read aloud from the speech bar and users can choose on a page by page basis whether the page is muted/unmuted.
Find out more information about this app, and other Twinkl apps, on our Apps Website Page.
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