Personalising a vocabulary

Also called Customising a vocabulary, Adding words, Personal vocabulary, Vocabulary editing

Adding the person's own words, names, places and phrases. A generic board is a starting point; the person's life is the rest of it.

What it is

Personalising a vocabulary means adding the words that are only true for this one person: the names of their family, their dog, their street, the club they go to, the football team, the phrase they say that makes everyone laugh, the brand of crisps. A generic board gives the words everyone needs. Personalising adds the words that make it theirs.

It is the difference between "friend" and "Sam", between "shop" and "Tesco", between "song" and the one song they want every single time.

Who it can help

Everyone who uses a board, from the first week. The people, places and things in a person's life are what they most want to talk about, and none of them are on a board out of the box. Personalising matters at every transition (new school, new home, new staff) and it matters for adults whose vocabulary was set when they were six and never revisited; see adult vocabulary.

It is not a reason to remove the generic words. A board that has been hollowed out to "just the words they use" stops the person ever meeting a new one. Personal words are added on top of a core vocabulary, not instead of it; see fringe vocabulary.

How it works

On most devices, adding a word means creating a new card: a label, a picture (a photo is usually better for personal words), and the spoken text. On a paper board it means printing and laminating a new card and sticking it in the same place on every copy. On both, consistency of position is what makes the word learnable.

The Talk board is a fixed general vocabulary: 308 cards in 14 sets, chosen to work for anyone, with a phonics keyboard and a big-key keyboard for the words nobody drew. Names, places and personal phrases are typed letter by letter or sound by sound, and the board speaks them. A paper page of the person's own words, with photos, kept with the device, fills the gap between the general board and the person's life.

Whatever the tool, personal vocabulary is a list to maintain. People, places and interests change, and a board that still has last year's teacher is a board that is slightly wrong every day.

Getting started

This week, write the person's ten people, five places and five favourite things on one sheet, with photos, and check which of them can be said on their board. Add the rest, in the device if it supports editing, or on a laminated page kept with it.

Ask the person which words they want. Watch what they point at, ask for with their body, or light up about, and add those, not the words the adults think are educational.

Set a date to review the list every school term or every six months, and always after a change of staff, school or home.

Where to get help

Communication Matters and the ACE Centre both advise on vocabulary design and device editing. A speech and language therapist or local AAC service can set up a personalised page set. The person's communication passport is the natural place to record the personal words that matter.