Pragmatic Organization Dynamic Display
What is PODD?
A complete communication system for people whose speech alone cannot carry everything they need to say.
A way of organizing language, not just a set of pages
PODD is a way of arranging vocabulary so that a person can find and say whatever they want to say. It works in non-electronic paper communication books and in electronic speech generating devices, including iPad apps and dedicated AAC hardware, and the same underlying organization carries across both.
The organization itself is the point. How language is laid out determines whether someone can reach the vocabulary they need right now, and whether the system keeps supporting them as their communication and language develop. A display that only holds a handful of preselected choices limits what a person is able to mean.
“a child who uses speech will independently select the words she wishes to use from the vast array of words she hears/sees used every day. A child who uses AAC will independently select the words she wishes to use from the vocabulary other people have chosen to model and, for aided symbols, made available for her to use.”
Porter & Kirkland, 1995, p. 93–94. This is the problem PODD was designed to solve.
What makes PODD different
Four design decisions shape the whole system.
Organized by pragmatics
Vocabulary is grouped according to what people actually do with language — greeting, asking, commenting, objecting, telling a story — rather than by category alone. Pragmatics is how language gets used for different purposes across different social situations, and that is what drives the layout.
Built for motor automaticity
Vocabulary sits in consistent places and stays available throughout the system. Over time, users reach for words without having to search for them. That automaticity supports both language learning and the confidence to start a conversation unprompted.
Core plus fringe vocabulary
High-frequency core words are combined with content, or fringe, vocabulary arranged by communication function and by what a conversation actually requires. The two work together rather than sitting in separate systems.
Designed for self-initiated messages
The aim is for people to say their own ideas and thoughts, in any situation, with any communication partner — not to select from options someone else anticipated for them.
How PODD was developed
PODD was created by speech pathologist Gayle Porter, a co-founder of the Cerebral Palsy Education Centre in Melbourne, Australia. It draws on more than thirty years of clinical practice and on a long collaborative process with the AAC community — shaped by continuous feedback from hundreds of AAC users and their communication partners, tested in real use at home, at school and out in the community.
Early 1990s
Gayle Porter, working with colleagues Jan Kirkland and Louise Dunne, had spent years trying AAC approaches that only ever let a person communicate from words chosen for them in advance. What was needed instead was a system that allowed genuine communication at any moment, and that let communication partners model language the AAC user could then take up and use for their own messages.
The first PODDs
The team began encouraging families and professionals to use activity displays and multi-level communication books to provide aided language stimulation, building on the work of Goossens', Crain and Elder (1992). PODD books and device page sets grew out of solving the practical design problems that came up in making those dynamic displays genuinely usable for children with complex communication needs.
2007 onward
Since the release of the Direct Access template resources, PODD has continued to develop with input from children, adults and families across the full age range. It has expanded to support people with varying physical, cognitive, visual, hearing and sensory needs. Longitudinal case studies follow individual communicators from one or two years of age into adulthood.
Who is PODD for?
PODD is not tied to a diagnosis or a stage. It is designed to meet a person wherever they are and keep going with them.
It adapts to the person
- Any stage of language development, from first words through to complex adult language
- A range of layouts suited to different movement, vision and language abilities
- Available for both paper communication books and electronic devices
- Grows and changes as a communicator's skills develop
Who it supports
- People with physical, cognitive, visual, hearing and sensory challenges
- Communicators with a wide range of diagnoses, including cerebral palsy, autism and various syndromes
- People who need visual support to understand spoken language, including those with severe hearing loss or other difficulty processing language presented through sound
Alternative visual and auditory presentation templates, for people with a range of vision needs, are currently in development.
Ready to get a PODD?
Templates are available for paper communication books and for speech generating devices, from four different suppliers. See what's available and how to get it.