Patchwork AAC
A communication board that grows with your child.
A communication board that grows with your child.
Different ways in. Not less to say.
Works alongside a device a child already has, or on its own. Every vocabulary here can hold the full core — what differs is how the words are laid out, shown and reached.
Every one of these can be changed later from the ⚙ button, and all of them can be set differently for each child.
This fills the About me folder. Think of it as a communication passport: the things this child may urgently need to tell a substitute teacher, a new carer or a paramedic, and cannot be expected to spell out one letter at a time. Anything you leave blank simply does not appear as a button.
About privacy. Address, phone, grown-up, school and medical notes stay on this device. They are left out of an exported board file unless you tick the box when exporting, so a board you send to a school does not carry a child's home address with it.
The things this child says often that no word bank would guess — an inside joke, a bedtime routine, the exact way they ask for their dog. These appear in the My phrases folder.
Some children learn language in whole phrases first and only later break them into words. For them these buttons are the main event, not an extra — and the shape of the phrase decides whether it grows or gets stuck.
A phrase that grows can come apart and recombine later. "Let's get a snack" becomes "Let's get…" and "a snack". Useful openers: Let's… · I'm… · It's… · That's… · There's… · How about… · Wanna… · What's… · Don't…
A phrase that gets stuck can only ever be itself — song lyrics, film quotes, a single noun. "To infinity and beyond" has nowhere to go.
Leave out "you" and "your". A child who hears "You want a turn" may well say it back meaning I want a turn. Say it from their side, or from both: I, we, let's.
Spread them across reasons to talk — refusing, commenting, sharing something good — not only asking for things. And keep them short for a young child; two or three words is plenty.
Following the Stage 1 structures described by And Next Comes L, and the modeling guidance from Meaningful Speech.
Folders appear in the side rail or along the top row of Home. Turning one off hides it and its words; turning it back on restores them. Words you have edited inside a folder are kept. You can add folders here any time — including on a core-only board — without re-running setup.
Take more than you think they need. A folder they never open costs nothing in the side rail, but one you left out is a conversation they cannot have. The only real limit is grid space, and that applies only when folders are placed on the board rather than in the rail.
A version is a complete copy of this board — its grid, folders, words, colors and settings. Go back to one if a change does not work out. Patchwork AAC saves one automatically before each big edit, and you can name your own before trying something out.
Recordings and photos are shared between versions, so going back never loses a voice you recorded.
Pinned pages appear in the side rail, reachable in one tap from anywhere. Home is always there. Pin only a few — the rail is for instant reach, not for browsing, and a long rail is its own navigation problem.