Symbol-It was designed to give you, the communication partner, a way to make language visible while engaging your symbol speaker. You speak verbally AND in picture symbols simultaneously so that the developing communicator sees the symbols and hears your speech simultaneously.
All communication partners: Parents, caregivers, emergency responders, educators, and therapists may all benefit from using Symbol-It, the first speech to symbol translator available for mobile devices.
Language is learned in naturally occurring environments and activities. Language is learned at home, at the playground, inside, outside, with family and friends, throughout life. Language is learned when we see and hear that language in meaningful ways.
Language through AAC should develop in the same way, and the symbol speaker should be given the opportunity to develop language naturally. This will require that the primary people in a symbol speaker’s life speak in the symbol system that is likely to be learned. According to O’Lenick and Garcia (2018), it is as if the speakers are speaking a language different from the individual and the individual developing language through AAC needs to figure out the symbols on his/her own.