Vocabulary organisation

Also called Vocabulary layout, Vocabulary arrangement, AAC organisation

The ways a vocabulary can be arranged, and why the arrangement, not the number of words, decides what a person can actually say.

What it is

Vocabulary organisation is how the words in an AAC system are arranged: what goes on which page, what sits next to what, and how a person gets from one word to the next. It is the architecture of the system, and it shapes everything the person says in the same way a building's plan shapes how people move through it.

There are four main approaches, and every page set and communication book uses one of them or a mix.

Who it can help

The choice matters for everyone, but it is invisible to most families, who are handed a system and never told there was a decision. Knowing the options lets a family ask why this one was chosen and whether it fits the person.

Category-based layouts (food page, people page, animals page) are intuitive for adults setting them up and poor for talking, because "want" and "not" are not in any category. Semantic-syntactic grids suit people building sentences. Pragmatic organisation suits people who need to say what kind of thing they are saying before they say it. Visual scene displays suit people who think in situations and struggle with abstract grids, including many adults with aphasia and young children.

How it works

Taxonomic (category) organisation groups words by what they are: nouns in folders by type. Fast to build, easy for partners to find things, weak for language because the words that combine into sentences are scattered. Most systems use it for the fringe only.

Semantic-syntactic organisation lays words out by their role in a sentence, left to right: people, then verbs, then describing words, then things. The layout teaches grammar by position, and it is the basis of most core-first page sets.

Pragmatic organisation groups words by what the person is doing with them: asking, telling, complaining, chatting. PODD is the best-known design. Visual scenes replace grids with a photograph and hotspots.

Almost every good system keeps the core words fixed and organises only the fringe, which is a fifth answer and the most common one.

Getting started

Look at the person's system and name its organisation. If you can't tell, ask the speech and language therapist. If the answer is "it's by category", ask where the verbs are.

Watch what the person tries to say and fails. If they can name things but can't refuse, ask or comment, the organisation is hiding the core. If they can build sentences but can't find "the cat next door", the fringe needs a better home.

Don't rebuild it yourself. Add words and pages within the existing design; restructuring a system a person has learned is a decision for the person and their therapist.

Where to get help

ACE Centre and CALL Scotland publish plain guides to the organisation types. Communication Matters runs training and a conference where the different approaches are on show together. An AAC assessment through the NHS should state which organisation was chosen and why.