Female health communication boards

At Smartbox we believe everyone deserves to be involved in conversations about female health and have the opportunity to share their own stories. When we heard about the ‘Period Project’ and the team of people striving to hear the unheard stories of women with learning disabilities around the topic of female health – we were keen to get involved!

To support this initiative we’ve developed 13 printable communication boards, designed to help medical and care professionals navigate conversations around women’s health. They can be used to support people’s understanding of these topics and empower them to ask questions and share their own experiences about their health.

These resources were created in collaboration with the Period Project team at the Open University and include core words alongside medical terminology. The boards cover topics such as menstruation, pregnancy, sexual health, menopause, and cervical screening.

Core word board

The core word board includes a range of single words that can be used in various situations (e.g. help, want, feel). These may be used alongside some of the topic-specific vocabulary.

Topic Based Vocabulary boards

Each topic board presents vocabulary about female health, with key phrases alongside. These boards can be used to communicate about health problems, including sharing and requesting information, and talking about thoughts and feelings.

The line drawings of a body, genitalia and internal reproductive organs with symptom words can be used to indicate problems with a particular area.

The pain scale grid contains words to talk about specific symptoms, with a scale to rate the severity and communicate about feelings, pain or discomfort.

How to use these boards

These resources may be used by a medical professional to help someone understand what is happening, e.g. if a test or procedure is necessary. They may also be used by someone to communicate what they want a medical professional to know, e.g. to indicate where it hurts, what the symptoms are or what they would like more information about.

All of these boards can be used to communicate single words or simple phrases. Sometimes you may point to multiple words to make a sentence, e.g. I want help.

Using the keyboard, you can spell out words or sentences alongside frequently used phrases.

For someone who is not able to point to symbols themselves, the person talking to them could point to each symbol/letter and wait for that individual to indicate yes/no to select each symbol/letter.

These boards could also be used to support communication between people who do not speak the same language.

Using these resources in Grid

These communication boards are now available in Online Grids. As they were originally designed to be printed and used as paper-based communication boards, you will need to edit them and add navigation to use them on your AAC device.

Need help editing in Grid? Check out our free Grid Learning Pathway on Smartbox Academy.