When choosing an AAC tool for a child, parents almost always face the same practical question: use ready-made symbols, or build cards from your own photos? At first glance it looks like a matter of taste. In reality, it is one of the decisions that most affects how quickly the child starts using the cards.

In this article I will explain what the research says, why personal photos are often understood faster by a child — and when generic symbols do still have their place.

A picture is not “self-evident” to a child

To an adult, a symbol seems obvious: a drawn cup — clearly “drink”. But for a child whose language is only just forming, this link is not given in advance. Researchers rank symbols by their “transparency”: some almost directly resemble what they mean, others have to be learned like words in a foreign language. Studies show that even fairly “clear” symbols are understood depending on the child's experience and even on which other symbols sit alongside on the board (Dada et al., 2013).

A card only starts to work once the child links it to a real object, person or action. And here a personal photo has a huge advantage: it barely needs this step — the child sees not a symbol to be “decoded”, but their own world.

What the research shows

Perhaps the clearest experiment in this area is Hartley and Allen's (2015) study with children who have autism spectrum disorder and very limited speech. The children learned new words shown with different types of picture: black-and-white drawings, colour drawings and colour photographs. The result: these children linked a word to the real object significantly more often when they saw a colour photograph. For typically developing children, the type of picture made little difference.

In other words — it is precisely the children who need AAC most for whom photos help most.

The very latest research reaches a similar conclusion. It tested an approach in which, instead of pictures of individual objects, real photos of the child's daily life are used — for example, their breakfast at their own table — and touching part of the photo plays a word. A 2025 review of fourteen such studies recognised this method as evidence-based practice: progress was recorded in 37 of the 42 children who took part (Patenaude et al., 2025). The common thread is the same: a child learns fastest from images in which they recognise their own environment.

The voice must be real too

A card is not only an image but also a sound. And here the same principle applies: the closer to the child's experience, the better (Light and Drager, 2007).

A synthetic child's voice in Lithuanian essentially does not exist. But even where synthetic voices are well developed, research shows that what matters most is the voice's intelligibility and whether it matches the child's speech and identity (Terblanche et al., 2025). A mum's or dad's voice on the card is not only emotionally closer — it sounds exactly as the child hears that word every day: the same pronunciation, the same intonation, the same person.

When generic symbols do have their place

It would be inaccurate to say symbols are unnecessary. Not everything can be photographed: “more”, “want”, “yes”, “no”, “help” — these core words make up about 80% of everyday language (Banajee et al., 2003), and they are often best conveyed by a clear, constant symbol that always looks the same.

In practice, a combination works best:

  • Personal words — people, objects, places, food — with real photos of the child's own environment.
  • Abstract and frequent words — with constant, clear symbols whose appearance does not change.

How to make a good photo card

  • Photograph the child's real object — their cup, their shoes, not a similar picture from the internet.
  • One object — one frame: a simple background, no distracting details.
  • For people cards, choose a close-up face — the one the child sees every day.
  • Record the voice in a calm, natural tone — the same word you say at home.
  • Update the cards: the cup changed — so does the photo.

A card is not just a picture. It is a bridge between the child and their world — and the closer that bridge is to the child's reality, to their dad, their cup, their yard, the faster the child will cross it. That is exactly why Kalbeja cards are built from real photos and the parents' voice: a child learns fastest from what is their own.