AAC Games for the Holidays

AAC Games are wonderful in so many ways! They make learning to communicate fun – and something to look forward to. Let us look at some AAC games that are perfect for this holiday season 🙂

AAC Games = Family Time

Holiday season means family time -and what’s more fun than spending some time together playing games with your loved ones! We have curated a list of games that you can play with your family using your Avaz AAC. 

1. Codenames

Codenames is a very popular board game played best with 4 or more people split into two teams. The game is played by guessing the location of your agents from an array of 25 cards (arranged 5 by 5). The ones who are playing spymasters will know the location of their team’s spies on the array. Each card on the array will have a word on top of it, and the spymaster plays the game by helping their team operatives find the right cards through single word clues. For example, say the array has wine, scarf, and snow, a possible clue is ‘Christmas x 3’. It is a fast-paced, gripping game that helps you think for one word clues to connect multiple words on the array.

Avaz users can use their picture mode or keyboard mode to give out clues to their operatives. 

2. Decrypto

If you love Codenames, there are high chances you will love Decrypto too. A similar game that can be played with 4 or more people, Decrypto is also played in two teams. Each team’s goal is to decrypt the code given by their encryptor. It is a very similar clue based word game, where you score points for successfully decrypting the opponent team’s code. A team wins if they successfully decrypt 2 codes given by the opponent team, and a team loses if they are unsuccessful twice in decrypting their own code. 

Let’s say the four words your team can see are:

1. Snowman 2. Beanie 3. Candle 4. Wine

If your encryptor’s code is 2 4 1, they may communicate the message as “cap, drink, white.” The opposing team can take note of this clue and can guess that it is anything related to snow in the second round.  With this, they may guess that it is something related to snow.

Just like Codenames, you can play Decrypto using Avaz AAC’s picture mode or keyboard mode. 

Customization Tips:

For Codenames & Decrypto
1. A quick folder of numbers (1-9) can come in handy here.
2. While playing the game, Younger children can be taught to use a) the search option in picture mode b) mistake buttons etc. 

3. Consequences

Consequences is an old game that ‘unfolds’ a story, literally. It is traditionally played with a sheet of paper. Here, each person writes a word or a sentence against a description listed and folds that section of the paper. They then pass it to the next player to write against the next description. An example of the game from its Wikipedia page:

The exact sequence varies, but an example sequence given in Everyman’s Word Games is:

1. An adjective
2. A person’s name 
3. The word met followed by an adjective
4. A second person’s name
5. The word at followed by where they met
6. The word to followed by what they went there for
7. The words he/she/they wore followed by what the first person wore
8. The words he/she/they wore followed by what the second person wore
9. What the first person did
10. What the second person did
11. The words and the consequence were followed by details of what happened as a result
12. The words and the world said followed by what it said

The same reference book gives the following example of a completed story:

Mediocre Joe met transparent Kim at the bowling alley, to dig for gold.

He wore a seafoam green leisure suit.

She wore a sandwich board.

He poured a martini.

She looked at her watch.

And the consequence was, the band got back together.

And the world said, “Somehow, I think I saw this coming.”

The Avaz AAC user can share the text as a message using the share option to a common person, who can at the end include their statement while reading out the story aloud. 

4. Tapple

Tapple is another fast-paced word game, where a topic card is drawn and the players take turns in giving single words related to the topic. Every time a word is used, the first letter of the word should be kept for display for the other players of the game to see. No player can use a word that starts with the letter already used and displayed. It is a timed game and the players go out of that round if they fail to guess a word within the given time. The player, who stays till the end knocking all other players, wins. 

Be mindful of giving the AAC user some extra time in this game to search through the folders to find their words or to type them out. 

AAC Games For the Win

Games are powerful ways to keep us engaged in a state of flow. We tend to learn a lot while playing a game.

We hope you enjoy playing these games with your AAC user. Team Avaz wishes you a happy and inclusive holiday season ahead!

Let us know some fun moments from your game time in the comments.