Guide
A letterboard app for the iPad
Many families of nonspeaking children and adults use a physical letterboard — a stencil or printed board of letters that the person points to, one letter at a time, while someone beside them helps hold the process together. If that's your family, you've probably wondered whether the board can come to a tablet without losing what makes it work. That's the exact question TBoard was built to answer.
What a physical board does well
A letterboard has real advantages a grid-of-symbols app doesn't: every target is big; the layout never changes underneath the person; and it puts no ceiling on vocabulary — whatever they can spell, they can say. Those properties matter, and a tablet version has to keep all three.
What changes on a tablet
The board talks. Letters build words in a text bar, the person can see and edit what they've built, and the board speaks it aloud when they're ready — in their own chosen voice.
The partner's mechanics are carried by the app. Beside a physical board, the helper is swapping boards, clearing mistakes, and holding the target word in mind. TBoard carries those jobs — board switching, wrong-tap cleanup, showing the working text — so the person beside the speller can stay with the person instead of managing the process.
The touch settings absorb motor difficulty. Big, well-spaced keys, a tap guard that ignores accidental repeat taps, adjustable tap timing, and one-tap correction — designed for hands that standard touchscreens have failed, including severe speech apraxia. There's more on this in our apraxia-friendly AAC guide.
Familiar layouts stay familiar. TBoard includes letterboard-style stencil layouts alongside a full keyboard, and a board builder that lets you recreate whatever layout the person already knows — at whatever size works, from a two-key board up.
Independence, stated plainly
TBoard is independent and method-neutral. It is not affiliated with, certified by, or endorsed by any named communication methodology, and it isn't therapy and makes no treatment claims. The design premise is simple and worth stating clearly: the speller taps every letter themselves. There is no facilitation in the app — no one else's hand in the message. The app's whole job is to remove barriers between the person and their own words: bigger targets, forgiving touch, instant speech.
Beyond the board
Because the board is a keyboard, everything built on it stays typing-first: daily read-along lessons with spelling practice a family member can run without preparation, practice rounds, saved session activity, and custom lessons built from your own text or photos. Everything is unlocked for a 7-day trial. After that, one purchase — $49.99, once — keeps all of it. Nothing renews.
Common questions
Is there a letterboard app for the iPad? Yes — this one. Familiar stencil and full-alphabet layouts, big targets, and the board speaks what's spelled.
Can a tablet replace a physical board? It can keep what matters — big targets, a layout that doesn't shift, no vocabulary ceiling — and add speech plus wrong-tap cleanup.
Can I recreate our own layout? Yes, in the board builder — from two giant keys up to a full keyboard.
Make one on paper first: the free AAC board builder builds a board in your browser and prints it.
Related: spelling to communicate on an iPad · AAC app for nonspeaking spellers
Free lessons: letterboard lessons to read, print, or try on the board
TBoard on the App Store (iPad)
TBoard on Google Play (Android tablets)
See it moving: the TBoard tour · Questions: support@mutedlabs.com