Quick phrases

Also called Stored phrases, Pre-stored messages, Quick messages, Quickfires, Phrase bank

Pre-stored messages for the moments when there is no time to build a sentence: the joke, the greeting, the call for help, the thing you say every day.

What it is

Quick phrases are whole messages stored on a device or a board so they can be said in one selection: "hang on, I'm typing", "I need the toilet", "can you move my arm", "that's hilarious", the person's name and address. Every AAC system has some, whether as a page of phrases, a strip along the top of the screen, or a set of cards in the front of a book.

They are the fast lane. Building a sentence word by word is how a person says something new; a quick phrase is how they say something now.

Who it can help

Everyone who uses AAC, and especially anyone with slow access, for whom a stored "please wait, I'm still writing" is the difference between staying in the conversation and losing the turn. People in hospital, who need "pain", "I can't breathe" and "call my daughter" at one press. Adults with aphasia, for whom a bank of their own everyday phrases can carry most of a day.

The risk is a system that is nothing but phrases. If every message has to be pre-recorded, the person can only say what someone else predicted, which is a script, not a voice. Phrases are the fast lane; the road is a vocabulary the person can combine.

How it works

Phrases are grouped by situation or by function: greetings, repair ("I didn't mean that"), operational ("give me a minute"), emergency, social, and the person's own sayings. They can be typed in, recorded in someone's voice, or captured from the sentence strip history: most devices let you save a message you just built as a phrase for next time, which is how a good phrase bank grows.

Placement matters. The phrases that have to be instant ("wait", "help", "toilet", "no") belong on the home page or a permanent strip, one hit from anywhere. The rest can live a page away.

Getting started

Write ten phrases the person says every day, in their words, and put them one hit from home. Include "give me a minute", "that's not what I meant" and something funny.

Add the emergency set, and make sure the ward, the school and the taxi driver know where it is: a phrase page nobody else can find is no use when the person is being lifted.

Harvest from history. Once a week, look at what the person built on the strip and offer to save the ones that recur.

Where to get help

A speech and language therapist will help build a first phrase set that fits the person's life. Say Aphasia and the Stroke Association have practical material on everyday phrase banks for adults. ACE Centre explains how each of the main apps stores and organises phrases.