Pre-made grids for visual schedules, behavior charts, and speech device overlays.
The foundational tool for creating and printing static communication boards, schedules, and worksheets.
The was a workhorse for its era . If you find an old copy in a school closet today, it will still print usable visual schedules — but you’ll fight with the interface, missing updates, and lack of modern search.
Critically, Boardmaker moved beyond disability. The PCS library was adopted in early childhood education and ESL (English as a Second Language) classrooms. The simplicity of the icons served as a scaffold for emerging literacy, helping neurotypical children associate text with images.
The software offers a range of features that make it an essential tool for special education professionals. Some of the key features include:
The original CD versions, particularly , were simple yet revolutionary. They functioned as a specialized drawing program paired with a graphics database. A key requirement for many of these earlier versions, which modern users may find jarring, was that the CD had to remain in the computer's drive at all times while the program was running. This served as the primary form of copy protection, ensuring that a single-user license was used on one machine at a time. As late as 2018, official channels were still facilitating trade-in programs to upgrade users from physical CDs to USB versions.
The Legacy and Evolution of Boardmaker CD: A Complete Guide to AAC Visuals
Boardmaker is the global standard for Picture Communication Symbols (PCS). For decades, educators, speech-language pathologists (SLPs), and parents relied on the physical Boardmaker CD-ROM to create accessible learning materials.