About this activity
Eight phrases for the moment a conversation goes wrong: That's not the word I wanted. Let me start over. I'm not done with my sentence. Please don't guess — wait for me. Most AAC vocabulary sets teach a student how to start a message and leave them stranded when the partner mishears, interrupts, or finishes the sentence for them. This board is about that recovery.
How to use it in a session
Set up breakdowns on purpose. Guess wrong, interrupt mid-message, walk away too early — then wait, and let the student reach for the repair rather than supplying it. The First letter is B card is worth extra time, because partner-assisted spelling is the strategy that rescues the most conversations and the one students are least often taught. Run it with a partner who is not you where you can: a peer or a paraprofessional makes it real in a way a clinician playing both parts does not.
What to listen for
The tell is timing. A student who uses Let me start over after a long pause has the phrase but not yet the reflex. Watch also for which repairs get used — most students default to Never mind, which ends the breakdown by abandoning the message. That is worth naming out loud: it works, and it costs the student the thing they were trying to say. Progress looks like the persistent repairs, not the exits, showing up first.
Carrying it home
Families are the partners who guess most, because they usually guess right. Ask them to try waiting through one long pause a day without filling it in, and to accept Please don't guess as a legitimate correction rather than a rebuff. Both sides need the practice.
Questions
- Who is this written for?
- Sixth through twelfth grade AAC users who have a working system and are running into partner breakdowns rather than vocabulary gaps.
- Should these be pre-stored on the device?
- Yes — repair only works when it is fast. A phrase that takes forty seconds to build is not a repair, it is another delay. Program the ones the student actually chooses.
- Is an account required?
- No. The board is free to play here. An account adds assignment and goal scoring.