What Children Would Design: Rethinking AAC for Social Participation

WHAT THIS STUDY LOOKED AT

Most AAC technologies are designed by adults. This study asked a different question: what would children prioritize if they were part of the design process?

Using a method called participatory design, researchers invited six typically developing 10-year-olds to build low-tech prototypes of communication tools for a child with significant speech and motor impairments. The participants were given art supplies, a design challenge, and time to work. Their inventions were then analyzed for patterns in function, appearance, and components.

Typically developing peers were chosen as a first step because they represent an important stakeholder group — they are the classmates, neighbors, and potential friends of children who use AAC. Their perspectives offer insight into what appeals to children and what supports social connection across disability.

Note: Participants were typically developing children, not children who use AAC. The authors acknowledge that future research is needed to validate these findings with AAC users directly.

WHAT THE CHILDREN DESIGNED

The children produced five inventions across two teams. These included robots with customizable personalities, a communication tray organized by importance and context, and a set of wheelchair-mounted cards. They also designed adapted tools for eating, drawing, and reaching.

Three themes emerged from the analysis: the functions the systems served, their physical appearance, and their specific components.

FINDINGS

Function: communication embedded in social life

The children did not design speech prostheses. They designed systems that integrated communication with play, entertainment, artistic expression, humor, and social participation. Vocabulary for teasing, joking, cheering, and expressing emotion was considered essential — not optional. Telecommunications features like phone and internet access were built in so users could stay connected with friends at a distance. The children reasoned that the user needed something to do with friends and something to say to friends — and that these two things should not be separate.

Appeal: systems children actually want to use

The children were aware that peers with disabilities can face social barriers. Their response was deliberate: they designed systems so appealing that other children would want to interact with them. They used bright colors, flashing lights, popular themes, humor, and the ability to perform surprising or impressive actions. They gave every device a name and a distinct personality, viewing the system as a social tool as much as a communication tool. The goal was not just to reduce stigma — it was to actively support social connection.

Personalization: reflecting the user

Every invention was designed to be customizable. Users could choose the device's name, voice, personality, colors, and themes. The children emphasized that the system should feel like it belonged to the person using it — that choices about how the system looked and sounded were a way of expressing identity, not just preference.

WHY THIS MATTERS FOR AAC PRACTICE

Children use communication to participate socially — not just to make requests.

The children in this study were clear about what they valued in communication: humor, shared experience, belonging, and the ability to stay connected with peers across contexts. These priorities are often underrepresented in AAC systems and in AAC goals. When we assess what vocabulary a child needs, it is worth asking not just what they need to express — but what they want to do socially, and whether their current system supports that.

Vocabulary for social participation deserves explicit attention.

The children's designs consistently included vocabulary for teasing, joking, cheering, expressing emotions, and participating in group activities. This kind of vocabulary is often absent from AAC systems or treated as low priority. Research supports its importance: humor and shared playful communication are known to reduce social barriers and support peer acceptance. Programming vocabulary for social participation — alongside functional and academic vocabulary — is a meaningful clinical decision.

Personalization supports both identity and engagement.

The children intuitively understood something that research supports: users are more likely to engage with systems that feel like their own. Taking time to individualize a device — its voice, themes, and vocabulary — reflects the user's identity and increases the likelihood the system will be used. This is not a cosmetic consideration. It is a participation consideration.

CONCLUSIONS

When children design AAC tools, they design for social life — for belonging, humor, connection, and identity. The gap between those priorities and what most systems currently offer is a meaningful one. This study provides an early data point in a larger conversation about what AAC should be designed to do, and whose priorities should shape that design.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Light, J., Page, R., Curran, J., & Pitkin, L. (2007). Children's ideas for the design of AAC assistive technologies for young children with complex communication needs. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 23(4), 274–287. https://doi.org/10.1080/07434610701390475

Plain-language summary by Haley Dayel, MS, CCC-SLP · cadenceaac.com