In cerebral palsy, the language is usually there — the motor pathway to speech is what’s affected. Dysarthria can make speech effortful or hard for strangers to understand, and AAC gives that intact language a channel that doesn’t depend on oral-motor precision.
The right AAC setup depends on your child’s motor profile:
For ambulatory children with understandable-but-effortful speech, a phone app is the repair tool: when the listener doesn’t catch it, the card says it perfectly. It’s always in the pocket, works offline, and doesn’t mark the child out at the playground. Natural voices matter doubly here — this may be the voice classmates hear most.
Speech that costs effort competes with everything else the day demands. Many children with CP speak in the morning and tap in the afternoon — that flexibility is a feature. Let the child pick the channel per moment, without treating the app as a fallback of last resort.
That exact profile — familiar-listener speech — is one of the most common and successful AAC use cases. The app handles strangers, phone calls, noisy rooms, and tired evenings; speech keeps doing the rest.
No — Tala is a touch-based app. For eye-gaze or scanning access, pursue a dedicated device evaluation through your SLP; that hardware route exists precisely for those access needs, and insurance typically funds it.