The Fitzgerald Key for AAC: Color-Coding a Core Board

The Modified Fitzgerald Key gives each kind of word its own color, so a learner can find words by color as well as by place. Here is where it comes from, what the colors are, how to decide whether it suits a learner, and how to set it up on a core board.

Make a Core Board

What the Fitzgerald Key Is

The Fitzgerald Key comes from Edith Mansford Fitzgerald (1877 to 1940), an American educator who was herself deaf. She developed it to teach English sentence structure to deaf students, and set it out in her book Straight Language for the Deaf. It gave the parts of a sentence a consistent look, so the structure was easier to see.

In AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) it has been adapted as the Modified Fitzgerald Key: a way of color-coding the buttons or cells of a communication system by the kind of word they hold. The idea is that color helps a user find a word, and notice the difference between, say, an action word and a describing word.

It works on low-tech systems, like a printed communication board, and on high-tech ones, like a speech-generating device, where it is built into many ready-made core word layouts.

The Colors on a TokenBoards Core Board

These are the ten categories and colors the core board editor uses.

Nouns

Things, people and places: ball, mom, kitchen. Often the most specific words on a board.

Pronouns

I, you, it, we. Small words that are used constantly.

Verbs

Actions: go, want, eat, play, make, look.

Adjectives

Describing words: big, little, hot, happy.

Prepositions & social words

Where things are, and social words: in, on, hello, please, thank you.

Questions

What, where, who, when, why.

Negation & important words

Words that stop or refuse, and words that matter a lot: no, stop, not, all done.

Adverbs

How, when or where something happens: fast, slow, here, there.

Conjunctions

Words that join: and, but, or. White, with a dark border so the cell can still be seen.

Determiners

Words that point to or count a noun: the, a, my, some. Dark gray, with light text.

This is the Modified Fitzgerald Key as AAC practitioners commonly set it out. There is a second convention, credited to Goossens, Crain and Elder, that assigns the colors differently (for example, pink to verbs and green to prepositions), so you may meet a chart that disagrees with this one. Some words could also go in more than one place: more, help and yes are common examples. Pick one scheme, sort the borderline words once, and use them everywhere. Being consistent matters more than matching one particular chart.

Is Color-Coding Right for This Learner?

Color-coding helps some users and makes little difference for others, so it is worth asking before you set it up. These are good questions to work through with the learner's speech-language pathologist (SLP) and family.

Vision. Does the learner have low vision or a color vision difference that changes how the colors look?
Sensory and neurological differences. Are certain colors or busy displays hard for them to process?
What works for them. Do they find words more accurately with one color arrangement than another? Does color make communication quicker, or slower?
Fill or border. Do they find words more easily when the whole button is colored, or when only the border is?
Flexibility. Can the system they use be changed, for example to recolor buttons?
What is already working. If the learner is fluent with their current system, a change can cost them access to communication. Don't change it for the sake of the colors.

What the Research Says (and Doesn't)

Be wary of anyone who says color-coding is proven to work. A well-known practitioner guide on the subject, by Carole Zangari, does not claim that research supports it. Its argument for it is practical: color gives a learner another way to find words, and it helps a team keep boards consistent.

One study looked at a closely related question. Thistle and Wilkinson (2009) timed typically developing preschoolers finding a target line drawing among twelve items, with color on the drawing itself, color only in the background, or neither. Drawings with color in the foreground were found faster than drawings with color only in the background, and background-only color seemed to slow the younger children down. It was a small study of children without disabilities, and it tested color on the picture, not a colored button or border, so it cannot say what works for a particular AAC user. Its authors point out that the effects for children with disabilities still need to be studied.

What it does suggest is to check, with the learner, how they find words most quickly, rather than assume a colored background helps.

Making It Work Across a Learner's Day

Match what is already around the learner. Use the same colors as the other visual supports in the therapy room, classroom or clinic.
Tell everyone. Share the choice with everyone who works with the learner, including parents and caregivers, so the colors mean the same thing in every setting.
Choose the form together. Color can go on a button's background, on its border, or on a title bar. TokenBoards offers the first two. Some teams also use the thickness or shape of the border to tell word classes apart, for example a thick border for main verbs and a thin one for helping verbs. Pick what the learner finds easier and quicker to use.
Choose how much color. You can use every color in the key, or only a few, such as pronouns, verbs and describing words. A simpler board can be easier to scan.
Then keep it consistent. Once you decide, use the same form and the same amount of color across the learner's whole system, printed and on screen.

Setting It Up in TokenBoards

1.Start from the core words. Open a core board and choose "Starter core words". The 24 words come with pictures where there is one, and each already has a word type.
2.Turn on word colors. In the Word colors section, choose "Color words by type (Modified Fitzgerald Key)".
3.Choose whole cell or border. Color the whole cell, or only its border, whichever the learner finds easier.
4.Choose the colors to use. Untick any word types you don't want colored. Those cells keep their own look, and the key only lists what you use.
5.Set each word's type. Click a cell, then pick its word type. If your team sorts a word differently, change it for that cell.
6.Print it or use it. The printed board includes a small key of the colors in use. In a session on a tablet, tapping a word says it out loud.

A core board is a low-tech support and is not a substitute for guidance from the learner's speech-language pathologist. If the learner already has a communication system, follow what the team has set up.

Citations and further reading

Fitzgerald, E. M. (n.d.). Edith Mansford Fitzgerald. Library of Virginia. Her life and the key she developed.
Thistle, J. J., & Wilkinson, K. (2009). The effects of color cues on typically developing preschoolers' speed of locating a target line drawing: Implications for augmentative and alternative communication display design. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18(3), 231–240.
Tobii Dynavox. (n.d.). The story of Core First. Further reading on core vocabulary.
Zangari, C. (2013, May 4). Communication boards: Colorful considerations. PrAACtical AAC. The color assignments, the second (Goossens, Crain and Elder) convention, ways to apply color, and why consistency matters most.
Communication Community. Fitzgerald Key for AAC. The questions to ask before using color-coding, and the tips for keeping it consistent across settings.

Make a Color-Coded Core Board

Start from a ready-made set of core words with symbols, turn on the word colors, and change anything to suit the learner.