SLP guide

Model Communicator at a glance

Running a trial

Because the app is free and needs no account, a trial can start the same day on whatever hardware is available, including the family's own iPad or a school Chromebook.

1. Install the iPad app, or open the web app.
2. On a shared iPad, create a profile for the student so that voice, settings and hidden words stay separate from everyone else's.
3. Choose a voice with the student. Offer two or three options and let them pick.
4. Set the access options (iPad, web) according to what you observe about their touch.
5. Decide on a starting vocabulary view (next section) and hide tiles accordingly.
6. Personalize lightly: a handful of photo tiles for family, pets and favorite things is enough to create buy-in.
7. Model heavily in motivating activities across several sessions and settings before you draw any conclusions.

What to observe

• Accuracy of direct selection at this tile size, across the whole screen.
• Attention to and interest in your models.
• Navigating into a folder and back.
• Response to the color coding and the symbols.
• Spontaneous exploration. Babbling on the device is a very good sign.
• Any independent or imitated selections, and the communicative functions they served.

A progression for hiding and revealing vocabulary

Rather than starting on a small grid and moving up (which forces the motor plan to be relearned at every transition), keep the full grid and control visibility. Words stay where they will always be, and you reveal more as language grows. On the iPad this is done with the hide toggles, which can be set per profile.

These stages are a guide, not a gate. Move on as soon as the visible set limits what you can model. Always model beyond the student's current expressive level, and never wait for "mastery" of a stage before opening the next.

Choosing a grid size

The iPad app offers MoCo-25, MoCo-42, MoCo-48 and MoCo-60 under Grid size. The web app currently provides MoCo-60. Let motor and visual access drive the choice rather than assumptions about cognition: pick the densest grid the student can target accurately, then use hiding to manage complexity. If direct selection is unreliable at any size, try Hold to activate and Ignore repeat taps before you move to fewer, larger cells.

Shared devices and caseloads

• Profiles (iPad, up to eight) keep each student's voice, grid size, learned predictions and hidden tiles separate.
• Page edits are shared by the whole device. On a shared iPad, put student-specific vocabulary on its own custom page (for example Maya's People) rather than changing common pages.
• Replicate a setup: back up boards on one iPad and restore on another so home and school match.
• Lock it down: use Guided Access and a settings passcode in classrooms.
• Modeling mode keeps your demonstration taps out of the student's learned predictions.

Matching low-tech materials

• Paper backup: print the Home board and any key topic pages. Hidden tiles print blank, so paper matches screen.
• Studio: create visual schedules, first-then boards, token boards, choice boards, flashcards and social stories from the same symbol set, so that symbols stay consistent across all of the student's supports.
• Classroom core board: print the Home board at poster size for group modeling during circle time.

Coaching families and staff

Partner training is the strongest predictor of AAC success. A coaching sequence that works:

1. Explain the why in a sentence or two. The opening of the modeling guide is written for this.
2. Demonstrate with the student while the partner watches. Narrate what you are doing.
3. Hand over the device and coach the partner live in a real routine such as snack or a favorite game. Praise specifics.
4. Agree on a tiny plan: two or three target words, one routine a day. Write it down.
5. Show Find Word so that the partner is never stuck.
6. Follow up within a week. Troubleshoot, celebrate, and add one more routine.

Share Getting started and Modeling with families. Both are written in plain language.

Monitoring progress

Model Communicator is deliberately privacy-first. It never records what a person says, and the iPad app keeps no usage log at all. What you can use:

• Web app, signed in: the Activity Map shows a heatmap of tile use by date range and page, and Therapy Goals tracks use of target words you list.
• Language samples: the message bar keeps the last utterance visible after it is spoken. Transcribe during sessions, or use Share to send an utterance to your notes.
• Partner data: track the partner as well as the student. Models per routine is the variable most within your control.

Useful things to measure: number of different words used, range of communicative functions (requesting, commenting, protesting, asking), mean length of utterance in words or morphemes, level of prompting, and navigation independence.

Funding and documentation notes

Model Communicator is software. It is not a dedicated speech-generating device and it is not a medical device (see our Terms). Because it is free, it is well suited to trials, to immediate access while a funding request is in progress, to backup systems and to settings where funding is not available. When documenting a trial, describe the features you matched (grid size, access accommodations, vocabulary organization, voice), the settings you used and the outcomes you observed.

Help shape the app

Model Communicator is built by a developer and a practicing SLP, and clinician feedback drives what gets built next. Tell us what your students need through the contact page or the issue form.