Visuals Engine

Visuals Engine from Connectability in Canada joins a number of excellent free visual support and communication board making programs.   Visuals Engine offers a step-by-step online app to make schedule or communication boards with up to 16 squares.  It includes photographs and a limited selection of Mayer-Johnson Picture Communication Symbols. The rest of the site is also worth looking through, with games, information on safety, a resume builder for people with disabilities and more.

Free Programs to Make Communication Boards and Free Symbols Sets

 Free Communication Board Making Software

• Picto Selector/PECS for All
• windows based software
• includes several free symbols sets (Sclera, Arasaac, Mulberry)
• makes grid style communication boards
• Tico
• make printable and/or dynamic display boards
• uses the Arasaac symbols in addition to their full photo library
• simple software is easy to use
• see previous review of Tico
• EdWord with Grid Maker
• allows import of entire files of photos or symbols (using a second application called Symbol Maker)
• has a "symbolate" like program
• windows based
• PHOTOsyms
• use photographs or import images from other symbols sets
• very easy to use
• makes grid based communication boards
• flash based application
• see my review from November 2008

Free Symbols Sets for Communication

• Axelia - freely available French symbol set
• Arasaac - full set of color or black and white line drawing communication symbols available in multiple languages, it is also possible to add this symbol set to Writing with Symbols 
• Imagine - focusing on core and topic vocabulary this is a full set of colored line drawing symbols (note based on personal experience Imagine symbols sometimes do not import well into other programs)
• Mulberry - full set of line drawing communication symbols, register and download one at a time or the entire set
• Sclera - black and white, high contrast images which are excellent for low vision and available in multiple languages

Please also note that Slater Symbols are available for free download one symbol at a time and for classroom using Unique Learning System or News-2-You or supporting Tobii, AMDi, Jabbla, Proloquo2Go or Tap to Talk AAC users, the SymbolStix symbols can be downloaded and imported into the above board design programs with a $99 dollar yearly subscription fee if you don't happen to own the SymbolMate or Communicator software.  Similarly if you are overseas and supporting Divertic symbol users you can subscribe to that symbol set for 55 Euros.

Story Book Communication Boards (Games and Activities)

This one is for my friends who teach early intervention through the early elementary grades.  Super Duper/Webber has a new product called Story Time Communication Boards.  It looks very similar in design but not theme to one of my all time favorite products Webber Functional Communication Games.  Essentially this contains the a twelve square static communication board for 20 favorite picture books (2 sides on each board), which double as bingo boards.  Which would be pretty cool alone, but then add a CD Rom of sample IEP goals/benchmarks and printable activities and lesson plans, an electronic spinner (these are so cool) foam chips, calling cards, differentiated question cards and game pieces.  Too bad they didn't add the game board.  It retails for $56.00

This is from the website:

WebberStory Time Communication Boards teaches students with limited verbal skills to recognize and use the most important vocabulary words in 20 popular storybooks.* This versatile teaching tool allows students with language delays, autism, and other communication disorders to participate in reading activities using Mayer Johnson’s BoardmakerPicture Communication Symbols (PCS). Webber Story Time Communication Boards is ideal for the SLP, teacher, or special educator working in an inclusive setting.

The complete set includes four identical communication boards for each story and 12 matching picture cards (240 cards total) to teach expressive and receptive communication skills. The lessons and activities in the workbook reinforce vocabulary and the included CD-ROM makes it easy to print activity pages in black and white or color.

The workbook includes measurable goals and objectives, and three different activities with extensions (Sentence Completion, Question and Answer, and I Spy) to use with a lesson plan or Individualized Education Plan (IEP). These activities help increase the child’s understanding of the story. Modify the specific measures of each goal to fit the individual needs of the students.

Materials Include:

• 40-double-sided communication boards (20 stories)
• Activity workbook
• 240 picture cards (12 per story)
• Electronic spinner
• 60 foam tokens
• CD-ROM for printing activity pages in black and white and color

* Uses the following books with your Webber® Story Time Communication Boards.
	Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle
	From Head to Toe by Eric Carle
	Good Night, Dora by Christine Ricci
	Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
	The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
	Where's Spot? by Eric Hill
	Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too? by Eric Carle
	The Napping House by Audrey Wood
	Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk
	My World by Margaret Wise Brown
	Matthew's Truck by Katherine Ayers
	I Love School! by Philemon Sturges
	Swimmy by Leo Lionni
	Wave Hello to Thomas! by Rev. W. Awdry
	Spot Goes to the Park by Eric Hill
	Cooking With the Cat by Bonnie Worth
	Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown
	"More More More," Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams
	Here are My Hands by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault
	Peek-A-Boo! by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

AAC Static Display Boards, Pre-Made ($)

• ACCI Inc. Company
• Buddy Boards
• Candle Wooden Waterproof Spelling Board
• Gateway Tri-fold Board
• Indoff Custom Boards for Hospitals (and others)
• Inman Innovations
• Luminaud Company
• PECS Books Company
• Point Talker
• Speak Unlimited EMT/Police Emergency Boards
• Vidatak Company
• VisiBoard
• Word Power Communication Board

More Commercial Low-Tech AAC Boards

I missed a few commercially available low-tech AAC Boards in my post last week, so here are a few more. The first is the Communicard Trio. It includes three pads of single sided communication boards, two picture and one spelling. It can be used in multiple health care settings and is disposable. It is mostly designed to be used as a short term solution while AAC is evaluated. It costs about $27.00 for the three pads of 50 sheets.

The health care communication board by Greenhouse Publications is a full color, disposable, two-sided board. It includes a pain scale and common images to communicate health care needs on the front and a spelling board and more images on the back. A pack of fifty costs $14.00.

Also from Greenhouse Publications are the interactive communication board sets. There are four full color sets including recreation, leisure and community, home and health, food and sensory/social and emotional. The boards are printed on card stock and laminated for durability. Each set is about $30.00.

Finally here is The Ring a set of 20 mini-communication boards held together on an "O" ring.

Commercial Communication Boards

Although most of us make our own communication boards for our students and use either off-the-shelf display materials or specialty display materials for them; there are commercial, pre-made communication boards available. These boards sometimes have advantages we cannot create using our classroom resources, such as a keyguard, extra durability or being waterproof. Most of the commercial board available are alphabet/text based or designed for medical use.

EMAT (left) and Candle (right) both offer spelling boards with build in keyguards, the Candleboard is safe to use in water.



The Buddy Board is perhaps the most unique of the commercially available boards. It is a clear plastic case that clips shut and holds a communication board inside. The case has a built in keyguard for a spelling keyboard or use with picture boards. The buddy board cases come in two sizes, Sr. and Jr. The overlays (underlays?) come in a variety of fdesigns including QWERTY keyboard, medical, a sticker board which includes a Mayer-Johnson PCS stickers, a blank board set and the Pro set which comes with the Boardmaker Software. You can also just buy the Buddy Board cases alone.


Satillo offers the WordPower OnBoard for literate communicators to use as a primary or back-up system. It features a spelling section, 100 high frequency words, numbers, and phrases all color coded.




ACCI is another company offering pre-made communication boards. They sell three different kinds: adult, child and design your own. These boards as much less medically oriented than those immediately above. All three boards have a QWERTY keyboard printed on the back for spelling. Likewise Language Images offers picture based communication boards.


Several companies make communication boards that can be used to indicate pain, wants and needs for patients in hospitals, rehabs and nursing homes. These can also be very useful for our students to communicate those same needs to school staff, their doctors and nurses, family and other caretakers. In fact if our students who have high medical needs learn to carry and communicate with such boards they will be at a communicative advantage if and when they need to communicate in a medical situation.

Interactive Therapy offers a series of Critical Communicators (above) for use in medical situations. Among the choices are board for the emergency room/ICU, a kid's board and a maternity board. They also offer text and very simple line drawing books.



Similarly Vidatak has a set of heavy duty laminated communication boards for hospitals that they call the EZ Board. (These boards were on the TV show ER.) The board has a pain chart with a diagram of a body to point to what hurts and on the reverse a spelling and communication books. The boards come in upwards of a dozen languages.


Trademark Medical offers an equivilant design on a clipboard or heavy duty laminated card called "The Silent Speaker". The Silent Speaker Boards come in three designs, one for home care, another bilingual board for acute care situations and a final large symbol board for use with children, individuals with learning disabilities and/or confusion and memory loss.

Another link to check out is Indoff Hospital Boards. Indoff creates custom dry erase communication boards for hospitals and others.