SPEECH BUTTON
TRAINING

AAC SPEECH BUTTON TRAINING

Humans primarily communicate verbally. Think about how your pet communicates with you versus those of their own species. Does he or she mainly use sound (barking/meowing), smell (cheek marking/butt sniffing), touch, or body language (tails and ears up)?

Cats are largely nonverbal with each other but have developed sounds (like meows) to communicate with us humans. Cats also use body language to let us know how they feel at any given time. Humans are often not adept at reading the subtle body language cues that cats present, and we may not always pick up on what our cats are trying to tell us. But we can learn! We can also teach our cats to use speech buttons so that they can more clearly communicate to us simple concepts such as “play,” “eat,” “pats,” etc.

But what is button training? Button training is a form of associative concept training/learning. Associative learning, in this case, is the formation of an association in your pet’s mind between a behavior (pushing a particular button) and a stimulus (what the button represents: going outside, eating, etc).

Associative concept learning theory states that ideas reinforce each other and can be linked to one another. This is one foundation for human language (think about how the spoken and written words for “cat” and the physical cat itself all refer to the same thing!).

AAC Speech Button training is a form of enrichment, intellectual stimulation, a fun way to spend quality time with your pet and an excellent way for you and your pet to communicate more clearly. It is important to remember that this is NOT a form of speech, language acquisition or 1:1 communication. While your cat is communicating with you, they are NOT “talking” and have not learned English.