When the device breaks

Also called Device failure plan, AAC breakdown, Broken communication aid

The plan for the day the aid stops working. Every device will, and a person without a plan is silent until it is fixed.

What it is

Every communication aid will break. Screens crack, batteries die, software updates fail, eye-gaze cameras stop tracking, a tablet goes in the bath. When it happens, a person who depends on it loses their voice for as long as it takes to fix, which is typically days and can be weeks. The plan for that day is the difference between an inconvenience and a crisis.

Most people do not have one. Most services do not ask.

Who it can help

Everyone who uses a powered communication aid, and the family or staff who will be the ones standing there when it goes dark. Schools and services with a duty to keep a person able to communicate. Anyone whose aid is old, out of warranty or funded by a route that no longer exists.

It is not only about the expensive dedicated devices. A tablet with an app breaks just as easily and is often less well covered.

How it works

The plan has four parts. First, a low-tech backup: a paper version of the person's core vocabulary, an alphabet board or a set of quick phrases on cards, kept where the device lives. Second, a spare voice: a second device, an old phone or tablet with the same app, or a free browser-based board that needs no account. Third, the repair route: who to phone, the serial number, the funding body, the loan arrangement, written on one card. Fourth, the person's own knowledge of what to do, because they may be the only one there.

Specialised AAC services and some suppliers offer loan devices during repair; see device loans and trials. Insurance or a service contract may cover the device; a school-funded aid is often the school's to insure and a family may not know. NHS-provided devices are repaired through the service that issued them.

A backup of the vocabulary matters as much as the hardware. A replaced device with an empty page set is a new mouth with no words in it. Most systems can export a page set to a file or to the supplier's cloud; it needs doing after every change.

Getting started

This week, print the person's main page and put it in the device bag. That is the backup, and it took ten minutes.

Find the serial number, the supplier's support number and the funding body, and write them on a card in the bag. Ask the supplier whether a loan device is available during repair, and how long repair usually takes.

Export the page set and save it somewhere that is not the device. Then set up Fiducia Talk on a family phone so that a spare voice exists on the day it is needed, and show the person where it is.

Where to get help

The service that provided the device is the first call: the NHS specialised AAC service, the local service or the supplier. Communication Matters can identify the right service. ACE Centre runs loan schemes in its regions. The Sequal Trust helps fund communication aids for people who cannot otherwise get one. Suppliers Smartbox, Tobii Dynavox and Liberator each run a support line for their own devices.