Symbol cards

Also called Picture cards, Symbol buttons, Cells, Picture communication cards

One picture, one word: how the cards on a talking board are chosen, drawn and labelled, and why the label matters more than the picture.

What it is

A symbol card is a single cell on a communication board or device: a small picture, a written word under it, and (on a device) a spoken word when it is pressed. Put a few hundred of them together and you have a vocabulary. Put them in a sensible order and you have a way to talk.

The picture is not a photograph of one particular thing. It stands for the idea. The card for "drink" has to work for tea, juice and water, so it is drawn as a generic cup, and the word underneath does the precise work. This is why the label is never optional: a partner who cannot guess the picture can always read the word, and a person who is learning to read gets the printed word every single time they use it.

Who it can help

Symbol cards help anyone who cannot yet spell a message out but can recognise a picture and press it: young children, people with a learning disability, autistic people who find words unreliable under stress, adults after a stroke or with aphasia who know exactly what they mean but cannot find the word.

They are not the best tool for a fluent speller. A person who can type is usually faster and more precise on a big-key keyboard or phonics keyboard, and offering them only pictures is a quiet insult. Most people use both: cards for speed, letters for the words nobody drew.

How it works

Three things make a card usable. The picture must be simple enough to recognise at thumbnail size, which is why the established sets (PCS, Widgit symbols, SymbolStix, ARASAAC) are drawn as bold line art, not photos. The label must be the exact word the card speaks, so that what the person reads, hears and sees never disagree. And the card must always be in the same place, because people learn where a word lives with their hand long before they learn what it looks like; see motor planning in AAC.

Colour coding is a convention, not a rule. Many boards tint nouns one colour, verbs another, people a third, so that the shape of a sentence is visible on the grid. The Talk board organises its 308 cards into 14 sets instead (needs, feelings, people, food and drink, actions, places, the bathroom, the kitchen, manners, sentence starters and more), so a person browses by topic and builds a sentence across sets.

Getting started

This week, look at the board the person already has and count the cards that are not requests. If nearly everything is a thing to ask for, add ten words that are not: comments, feelings, negation and pronouns.

Then use the cards yourself. Point to "finished" when you finish, press "funny" when something is funny. A card the person has only ever seen used to demand something will only ever be used to demand something. This is the whole of aided language stimulation and it costs nothing.

If you are making paper cards, print the word in a plain font under every picture, laminate them, and keep the layout identical on every copy in the house.

Where to get help

Communication Matters is the UK membership charity for AAC and its site explains the symbol sets and where each is used. ARASAAC and Global Symbols offer free, openly licensed symbols you can print. A speech and language therapist reached through your GP, school or local AAC services can help choose a set and a layout.