Compared with communication aids
A voice, or a doorbell with words on it
If somebody needs a way to say what they are thinking, they need AAC and a speech and language therapist. GoButtons does something much smaller, and confusing the two would cost somebody their voice.
These are not two versions of the same thing
AAC — augmentative and alternative communication — exists so that a person can express whatever they want to express: new sentences, disagreement, humour, a question nobody anticipated. It is a clinical field, it is normally assessed and set up by a speech and language therapist, and the device is that person's voice. GoButtons is not AAC and is not a communication aid. It sends a handful of fixed messages that somebody else wrote and that only reach people already connected to it. Treating it as a substitute would limit somebody to the sentences another person thought of, which is the precise harm AAC exists to prevent.
Where it sits alongside AAC, without pretending to be it
Some people use a communication aid with the people around them, and still have no way to reach somebody who is not in the room. Those are different problems and the second one is ours: a press reaches a phone in another part of the building, or another part of the town.
There is a narrower case worth naming honestly, because families arrive at it themselves. A communication device is sometimes across the room, on charge, or set aside during a rest — and in those gaps a large fixed button within reach is better than nothing. That is a fallback for a handful of practical requests, not a communication method, and anyone using it that way should say so out loud rather than let it drift into being the main channel.
If you are not sure which you need, ask a therapist and not us
We are not qualified to assess anybody's communication and we are not going to pretend otherwise on a page whose purpose is to sell software. A speech and language therapist can, and the assessment is the thing that decides this.
If the answer comes back that somebody needs AAC, buy AAC. If it comes back that they communicate perfectly well with the people in front of them and the actual gap is reaching somebody in another room, that gap is what GoButtons is for.
When to buy an AAC device instead
This is meant plainly rather than as a rhetorical move. If any of these describe you, stop reading and go and look at an AAC device — we would rather you did that than bought this and discovered the gap at the worst possible moment.
- The person has things to say that go beyond asking for something. That is everybody, and it is the whole argument.
- They need to be understood by people in the room, not by phones somewhere else. GoButtons says nothing out loud.
- A speech and language therapist is involved, or should be. Their assessment decides this, not a comparison page.
- Communication is a goal in an EHCP, a care plan or a therapy programme.
- Vocabulary needs to grow as the person does. GoButtons has a few buttons and is not a system that grows into a language.
Side by side
Where the honest answer is “an AAC device”, the row says so. A comparison in which one side wins everything is an advertisement, and this page would rather be useful.
| AAC device | GoButtons | Verdict | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What can be said | Anything. Vocabulary systems build sentences that nobody scripted. | A few fixed messages, written in advance by somebody else. | Better: AAC device |
| Who it speaks to | Whoever is present. It produces speech in the room. | Only the phones connected to it. It makes no sound to anybody nearby. | Better: AAC device |
| Professional support | Assessed and configured by a speech and language therapist. | Set up by a family member or a colleague in a few minutes. Nobody clinical is involved. | Better: AAC device |
| Growing with the person | Designed to expand into a full language over years. | Does not grow. It is a few buttons and it stays a few buttons. | Better: AAC device |
| Reaching another room | Speaks locally. Getting a message to somebody elsewhere is not what it is for. | The entire purpose — a press reaches every connected phone wherever they are. | Better: GoButtons |
| Knowing the message arrived | You know if somebody heard you. If nobody is there, nobody heard. | A status line says it was sent, seen, and who is coming. | Better: GoButtons |
| Effort to use | Composing takes time and learning, which is the price of saying anything. | One press, no learning. Which is only enough for one of five things. | Different, not better |
| Cost | Ranges from a free app to dedicated hardware costing thousands. | A monthly fee, on devices you already own. | Different, not better |
What GoButtons costs
$9.99 a month covers one station and one person besides you, after two weeks free with no card. The pricing page has the sums worked out for a few ordinary setups.
There is no hardware to buy, no installation, and nothing to fit to a wall — it runs on phones and tablets you already own. That is a genuine difference in what the money buys, and it cuts both ways: nothing has been installed, so nothing has been checked.
If GoButtons is the right shape, which situation is yours?
- families — Someone at home who needs to reach you without shouting, phoning, or learning an app.
- schools and classrooms — A pupil who cannot reliably get an adult’s attention across a room.
- workshops and day services — People at benches or stations who need a supervisor, across noise and distance.
- front desks and counters — Someone on a desk who needs a colleague from the back, without leaving it.