One of the ways the Makey Makey can be used in augmentative communication is to add spoken words to picture symbols with software that links keystrokes to sound files. In these programs, pressing a letter key on the keyboard plays a sound file. These sound files can be spoken words or phrases. Touchpads attached to the Makey Makey can be used instead of a keyboard. Soundplant (soundplant.org) is one such program, designed specifically to link keystrokes to sound files in an intuitive way. It has a free version as well as a paid version with more features. Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) is a visual programming language and multimedia authoring tool, designed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, that is also easy to use for this purpose. It is free.
