Speech Assistant AAC

What the app is for and who uses it

Speech Assistant AAC is a text-to-speech app for people who have difficulty speaking. The listing names aphasia, MND/ALS, autism, stroke and cerebral palsy as examples, along with other speech problems.

The basic idea is a board of buttons. Each button holds a phrase, and a person taps buttons to build a message, which is then either shown on screen or read aloud. Typed text works the same way, so the app also covers messages nobody has saved in advance.

Building your own phrase boards

You organise phrases into categories, so related words sit together and are easier to reach during a conversation. Each button can carry a photo from your photo library or one of the app's symbols, which helps when reading text is hard.

The layout works in portrait and landscape on both smartphones and tablets. The listing describes the app as fully customisable, so the categories, buttons and images are yours to change.

Speaking and showing messages

Each message can be spoken with a text-to-speech voice or with a recording of your own speech. Typed text goes through the same route, so anything you can type can be read aloud or shown.

The full-screen button puts the current message across the whole display in a large font. This suits holding a phone up for someone across a table or showing a screen to a shop assistant.

Finding phrases fast and keeping conversations apart

The history keeps previously typed phrases close to hand, so a sentence you have already written does not have to be typed again. Auto complete narrows the list of saved phrases as you type, which shortens the search through a large board.

Tabs are an optional setting that give each conversation its own tab, so several people or topics can be kept in separate sets of messages.

Backing up your setup

The listing says you can back up your categories and phrases to Mail or Google Drive. A saved copy means the boards you have built can be restored if the phone changes.