One system, every stage
One app that grows with your child, never one to outgrow
Most families dread the day they outgrow an app and have to start over. With Sayella there is no starting over. One system carries a communicator from first words to full sentences and on to text, and a learned button never moves along the way.
The journey, stage by stage
The same app, the same account, the same muscle memory. Here is how a communicator moves from a handful of first words to full, literate sentences, without ever starting over.
Stage 1Emergent
First words, big tiles, and lots of modelling.
For a brand-new communicator, the board starts simple: a few large buttons or photo scenes and a persistent set of core words like I, want, more and stop, always in reach.
The grown-ups around the child model these words constantly, showing what AAC is for. The board is calm and uncluttered, so first attempts feel achievable rather than overwhelming.
Stage 2Building core
More core words, the colour key, and modelling that sticks.
As confidence grows, Progressive Language reveals more core words inside the same fixed grid. The Modified Fitzgerald colour key starts doing quiet work, grouping words by part of speech to support scanning and early grammar.
Crucially, every word learned at the emergent stage is still exactly where it was. New words appear around the familiar ones, so nothing the child has mastered is ever disturbed.
Stage 3Fringe and folders
Categories and folders add the specific words a life needs.
Core words carry most of everyday talk, but a child also needs the specific nouns of their own world: foods, toys, places, the names of people and pets. These fringe words live in clearly organised folders by category.
You can arrange and personalise these folders in the board editor, adding photos and generated symbols for the things that matter most, while the core layout underneath stays untouched.
Stage 4Robust
A full vocabulary, grammar and morphology, on a denser grid.
A confident communicator moves to a robust layout: the full core vocabulary, word endings and grammar, and a larger grid that puts hundreds of words within a few taps. Literacy is woven throughout.
It is more capable, but it is not a new app. The words that were learned years earlier are in the same places they always were, so the step up feels like growth, not relearning.
Stage 5Text and keyboard
Literacy, word prediction, and saved phrases, when reading takes over.
For a communicator who has moved beyond pictures, Sayella has a full text and keyboard mode with word prediction and saved phrases. Symbols can fade as reading grows.
It is the same account and the same voice, so a teenager or adult keeps everything they built and simply talks in a new way. There is no migration, and nothing to lose.
A learned button never moves
This is the promise that makes the whole journey work. As vocabulary grows, new words appear inside the same grid, but every word your communicator has already learned stays exactly where it was.
Because a word lives in the same place every time, reaching for it becomes automatic, a fixed motor path rather than a fresh search. We grow the vocabulary, we never reshuffle the layout, so the muscle memory built at stage one still works at stage five.
For the grown-ups doing the modelling
Children learn AAC by seeing it used. Sayella’s partner tools let you model a message silently without triggering speech, highlight the path to a word, and use find-this-word to show exactly where a word lives on the board.
Modelling never clears the message your communicator is building, so you can show a word and hand the board straight back. Therapists and family members can share supervisor access, including remotely, to support the same learner together.
One voice, all the way through
Start free today and grow into every stage on the same account. See everything Sayella can do, or download and begin.