Literacy is a powerful tool for communication, with particular potential for users of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). This is dramatically illustrated by John Carey's comment in his preface to Christopher Nolan's book Under the Eye of the Clock. He describes the author's experience of release when he surmounted his severe motor and speech impairments to express the written words, ‘He played rapturously with them, making them riot and lark about, echoing, alliterating, and falling over one another.’ However, unfortunately even in the presence of normal intellect, this acquisition of literacy for childhood AAC users proves elusive. The paper by Sandberg in this month's issue is, therefore, a welcome contribution to the small body of literature that addresses this important area.