Sentence building

Also called Combining symbols, Message construction, Multi-symbol messages

How a person moves from pressing one word to putting three or four together, and why the second word is the hardest one to teach.

What it is

Sentence building is the move from single words to combinations: from "drink" to "want drink", to "I want cold drink now". On a device the words collect in a strip along the top of the screen, the sentence strip, and are spoken together when the person is ready. On a paper board the partner reads the pointed-at words in order and says them back.

It is the same step every speaking toddler takes at about the two-word stage, and it happens for the same reason: one word cannot say who, what and whether.

Who it can help

Anyone who has a handful of single words on a board and uses them reliably. That is the only prerequisite. You do not wait for a person to "master" single words before showing them two, any more than you stop talking to a baby in sentences until they can say one.

It is not, on its own, for a person who is still working out that pressing a card makes something happen. Cause and effect comes first; see teaching a new word. And it is not needed by a fluent speller, who is already building sentences letter by letter.

How it works

The mechanism is ordinary grammar with a mechanical twist. Each press adds a word to the strip; a delete key removes the last one; a speak key reads the whole strip. The person hears the sentence assembled, which is the feedback that makes word order learnable.

Word order is taught by modelling, not by correction. A partner who wants "more juice" presses "more" then "juice" on the person's own board while saying it, every time, for weeks. The board's layout does a lot of the work: sentence starters sit in one set, action words in another, so a sentence tends to run left to right across the sets in roughly English order.

Expect combinations to arrive in a predictable shape: request plus object ("want biscuit"), then a person or pronoun ("I want biscuit"), then a describer or negation ("I not want biscuit"). Three-word sentences with a verb, a subject and an object are a real milestone and worth celebrating out loud.

Getting started

Choose one two-word frame and use it everywhere for a fortnight: "more X" or "want X" or "go X". Model it on the board twenty times a day without asking the person to copy you. Then add a second frame.

When the person presses one word, expand it: they press "biscuit", you press "want biscuit" and speak it, and hand them the biscuit. No drilling, no "say the whole sentence first". The reward is the biscuit, not the grammar.

On the Talk board, build sentences across sets: a starter from the sentence starters set, then a word from feelings or food. Show the person the delete key early so a wrong word is never a disaster.

Where to get help

A speech and language therapist can map which combinations to target next; ask via referral. Communication Matters runs family and professional training on exactly this. Speech and Language UK explains the ordinary stages of combining words, which are the same stages on a board.