Dbak91Home / James Sounds / James Reaction
James reacts to his soundboard
My younger brother James has Down syndrome and non-verbal autism. I built James Sounds so he can tap a big picture and hear the tablet say the word. These photos and videos, taken on 9 November 2026, show his reaction.
The best user feedback.
The best user feedback I will ever receive is my brother's face the day I deployed James Sounds: his Shrek, Black Eyed Peas and family custom version of the free AAC app Custom Soundboard.
James is severely limited. For 15 years the only thing he knew was the browser, already open on old YouTube tabs. He can't go to YouTube himself; he just presses play. Now he has learned how to open James Sounds himself.
He taught himself that when the browser launches, one of his thousands of unclosed YouTube tabs will work, so he already knew tab swapping was a thing. That is why I built the app to work like the Silk browser, with his pages as tabs along the top.
His face says it all.
Tap, listen, repeat.
Turn the sound on: the tablet speaks each tile he taps.
His Shrek page, with Shrek and Donkey tiles. 35 seconds. Tapping through his tiles at the table. 21 seconds. Smiling as he taps his tiles. 16 seconds.
Free for anyone.
James Sounds is free and open source, and it works offline on Android tablets, including older ones like the 2012 Nexus 7. You can try the same board in your browser before installing it, or read how James Sounds works.