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Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) are multimodal communicators. However, in classroom interactions involving children and staff, achieving mutual understanding and accomplishing task-oriented goals by attending to the child's unaided AAC can be challenging. This study draws on excerpts of video recordings of interactions in a classroom for 6–9-year-old children who used AAC to explore how three child participants used the range of multimodal resources available to them – vocal, movement-based, and gestural, technological, temporal – to shape (and to some degree, co-control) classroom interactions. Our research was concerned with examining achievements and problems in establishing a sense of common ground and the realization of child agency. Through detailed multimodal analysis, this paper renders visible different types of practices rejecting a request for clarification, drawing new parties into a conversation, disrupting whole-class teacher talk-through which the children in the study voiced themselves in persuasive ways. It concludes by suggesting that multimodal accounts paint a more nuanced picture of children's resourcefulness and conversational asymmetry that highlights children's agency amidst material, semiotic, and institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the relationship between lexicon and grammar in individuals who use graphic symbol-based aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Data came from 60 transcripts of generalization sessions that were part of two previous intervention studies, aimed at improving the expressive vocabulary and grammar of 12 children and youth who used graphic symbol-based AAC. The specific aims of the current study were to (a) describe vocabulary composition across different levels of expressive vocabulary and (b) analyze the relationship between global measures of expressive vocabulary and the use of grammar in individuals who use aided AAC. A series of multiple linear mixed effect regression analyses showed a positive predictive association between overall vocabulary size and the use of closed-class words, and a positive relationship between the use of verbs and the use of closed-class words. Additionally, the use of verbs had a significant positive association with the use of inflectional morphology, while the use of nouns did not. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conversational repair has been found to play a fundamental role in the acquisition of language. This paper describes existing research on conversational repair and its relationship to language learning, whether a first language or a second language, as well as its relevance to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). A case is made for incorporating prompts to repair in conversation-based language interventions with children learning to use AAC. We argue that interventions targeting linguistic complexity should encourage self-repair in conversation in order to develop linguistic and operational competency as well as increase automaticity when using AAC. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the effects of a conversation-based intervention on the use of verbs, personal pronouns, bound morphemes and spontaneous clauses in adolescents with cerebral palsy who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Four teenage girls aged from 14 to 18 years participated in the study. After a baseline period, a conversation-based intervention was provided for each participant in the context of a personal collage-building activity. The conversations were videotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT™). While the results are mixed, all four participants increased their use of at least one linguistic target, three increased their use of verbs and grammatically correct spontaneous clauses, two increased their use of personal pronouns, and one produced more bound morphemes during intervention than in baseline. These findings, and future research needs, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]