Strategies for Adding Vocabulary🔗

AAC vocabularies come pre-programmed with tons of words, but there are times when adding words to our AAC users’ vocabularies makes sense. Maybe it’s a lesson in class or an activity that motivates them to use the device that means you’ll want to add some fringe vocabulary words. Either way, it’s important to have a strategy for adding new vocabulary before you begin adding and editing buttons.

Location is Important🔗

We want to make sure we are adding new buttons in locations that make sense. Generally, that means leaving the home page alone, as those core words tend to stay in specific locations so they’re readily available. For example, Cheez-Its is not going to be appropriate for our home page or for our social page, but it would be great on our food page next to other snack words.

Most AAC apps also color-code words based on parts of speech, so verbs, nouns, and prepositions all have their own colors. When adding a new icon, we want to try and stay consistent with the color code that already exists in the system.

How Do I Edit in My Speech App?🔗

Editing looks a little bit different in every AAC app, so checking in with your user’s SLP is super important. If you need additional support with adding a word, you can check out our speech app guides for button programming instructions for many of the common speech apps.