Beta · Cohort 1 · For invited clinicians
Meadow.

Early AAC has been frozen for a decade. Help us unfreeze it.

Meadow is an AAC app built to grow with a young child — and, unlike anything else out there, designed to know when to step aside.

You're not a customer here — you're a co-designer. You were invited because your clinical judgment is the one thing we can't generate ourselves. Be vocal. Be specific. We built this to be right, not to be praised.
The idea

One app. The child's whole early communication arc.

An iPad AAC app for pre-verbal children, ages 1–4, that meets a child exactly at their cognitive stage and lets them talk about the world right in front of them.

It's designed to be clinically effective and genuinely fun — and to give SLPs and parents far more flexibility and control, far more easily, through a modern UI that doesn't feel like clinical software from 2012. Meadow grows with the child for a few years, then hands them off to a more robust system when they're ready. A bridge, not a forever home — and we think that honesty is a clinical strength.

How it grows

Three tiers, one world

Every child sees the same world. The tiers change how they interact with it — and the SLP sets the tier and moves it up as the child develops.

1 Modeling

First Words

~Age 1

Tap an object → it speaks one word, instantly. The child hears language used correctly in context. No menus, no friction.

2 Combining

Word Pairs

~Ages 2–3

Tap → a few two-word combinations appear (“want milk,” “more milk”) → the child chooses one → it speaks. Choice, with intention.

3 Conversing

Sentences

~Ages 3–4

Tap → sentence suggestions appear → the Speak-Choose-Speak loop begins, with custom sentence building. Real back-and-forth.

Same kitchen. Same objects. Three completely different conversations, scaled to the child.

Meet the buddy

A companion that grows up alongside the child

The buddy is an animated friend who makes communicating feel social instead of clinical — but it isn't decoration. It does real work, and its job changes as the child does.

In Tier 1

It models. The buddy shows the child how words are used, turning every tap into a tiny moment of shared language.

In Tiers 2 & 3

It becomes a quick-finder. The buddy evolves with the child into a fast shortcut to their common, most-used words — communication on demand.

You're testing one room. You're glimpsing a whole world.

Meadow isn't a stack of separate boards. It's one connected, dynamic world. Words, feelings, and the buddy travel with the child — reachable from different places, at different moments, however the conversation flows. The Kitchen is a window into a system that flexes around the child instead of forcing the child to navigate a grid.

The slice

What you're testing right now

You're holding one room — the Kitchen — built to full depth on top of the complete set of engines. It's real, working software, not a mockup: a core sample meant to prove the whole experience works before we replicate it everywhere.

Much is intentionally not here yet. Some is built and waiting on content; some we've scoped but not designed; and a few decisions we're deliberately holding open — because we want your fingerprints on them before we make the call.

More rooms coming Final artwork coming Your data export coming Custom vocabulary coming
Before you dive in

What to expect

It's early — and that's the whole point.

This is a real, working beta, not a polished product. Expect rough edges: the odd crash, animations that stutter, art that's still placeholder, moments that feel unfinished. None of that is a surprise to us — you're seeing the engine before the paint job. So don't let a bug make you think less of the idea. Flag it, then keep judging the concept: that's the thing we actually need your eyes on.

Start here

Open the app, step into the Kitchen, and just tap around. Then have the SLP move the tier up and try the same room again — that's the core of what to feel out.

You'll need

An iPad running iPadOS 18 or later. Meadow is iPad-only by design — it won't appear on iPhone. TestFlight is a free download from the App Store.

The timeline

This cohort runs a few weeks, and we'll ship updated builds as we go — so keep TestFlight installed. Send feedback whenever something strikes you; sooner beats polished.

The one ask that matters most

Is this actually new — or just nicer?

Here's the honest version of why you're here. We don't mainly need to know whether Meadow is polished — it isn't yet, and we know it. We need your judgment on whether it's innovative: a genuinely different way to do early AAC, or a prettier version of what already exists. That's the read only a clinician can give — and it's the whole reason for this beta.

Is it new?

What here made you think “I've never seen that”? What made you think “I've seen that before, just nicer”? Name the specific thing — the concept, the engine, the moment.

Would it change your practice?

Would anything here change how you'd actually run a session, introduce AAC, or move a child forward? Or is it business as usual with a fresh coat of paint?

Go bolder

If Meadow could do something no AAC app does — a new engine, a behavior, a moment you've always wished existed — what would it be? Dream with us.

Bugs, crashes, rough edges, “this feels off”? We want those too — but send them in TestFlight. That's polish, and polish comes later. Here, on this page, we're chasing what's new.

Clinical lens

Is the concept sound and novel? Do the tiers map to real cognitive progression? Is scene-based vocabulary a real advance — and for whom is it the wrong fit?

Engine lens

Under the surface are swappable “engines” (speak-choose-speak, sentence prediction, the buddy). What engine from your world would you drop in that no one has built?

Imagery lens

Our symbols are custom AI-generated art — a real departure. Is that approach itself an advance for AAC, or a distraction?

Want the clinical receipts?

Every design decision in Meadow is mapped to the communication function it enables, the barrier it addresses, and the published evidence behind it — using the Participation Model (Beukelman & Light). If you want to see the clinical reasoning under the surface before you weigh in, it's all laid out for you.

See the Clinical Traceability Matrix →

How to send it

Two channels, so nothing gets lost

In the moment

TestFlight

Hit a bug, a crash, or something visually off? Send it straight from TestFlight with a screenshot — fastest way to flag the small, in-the-moment stuff.

Use TestFlight feedback
The deep stuff

Tell us what you really think

For everything that matters most — clinical reactions, what you love, what you don't, and where we should innovate — leave it right here on this page.

Share deep feedback ↓

Prefer a clean page on its own? Use the dedicated feedback page — it goes to the same place.

Leave your feedback

Post a comment below — clinical, emotional, or a wild idea for where Meadow should go next. You can reply to each other, too. We read every word.

The children this is for can't tell us what they need. You can.

Thank you for building this with us. Be vocal, be specific, be relentless — the product will be better for it.