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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.

For children with complex communication needs in the early stages of language development, access to appropriate vocabulary provides a means for social interaction and participation, and the foundation for the acquisition of grammar and other language related skills. While numerous resources are available to support decision making for speakers of English, there is a pressing need to rapidly expand such resources for other languages. Spanish is the official language in 20 countries, and in other countries (e.g., United States) Spanish-speaking communities represent a substantial proportion of the population. The aim of this study was to produce a developmentally-relevant word list for use by Spanish-speaking children in the early stages of language development. The list was developed from an analysis of overlap between published and validated lists of words produced by young Spanish speaking children with typical development. The list includes a wide range of word classes and semantic categories and is proposed as a tool to assist professionals, families and software developers in the process of selecting an initial lexicon for children who require AAC and are learning Spanish. Implications of our findings for vocabulary selection and future research directions are discussed.

The present study investigated the effects of different types of recasts and prompts on the rate of repair and spontaneous use of novel vocabulary by eight children with severe motor speech disabilities who used speech-generating technologies to communicate. Data came from 60 transcripts of clinical sessions that were part of a conversation-based intervention designed to teach them pronouns, verbs, and verb inflections. The results showed that, when presented alone, interrogative choice and declarative recasts led to the highest rates of child repair. The results also showed that when children were presented with recasts and prompts to repair, the rate of repair increased. Spontaneous use of linguistic targets was significantly and positively related to conversational sequences where the adult recast was followed by child repair. These findings suggest that using different recast types and prompts to repair may be beneficial for spontaneous use of linguistic targets in this population.

Purpose: This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a conversation-based intervention on the expressive vocabulary and grammatical skills of children with severe motor speech disorders and expressive language delay who use augmentative and alternative communication. Method: Eight children aged from 8 to 13 years participated in the study. After a baseline period, a conversation-based intervention was provided for each participant, in which they were supported to learn and use linguistic structures essential for the formation of clauses and the grammaticalization of their utterances, such as pronouns, verbs, and bound morphemes, in the context of personally meaningful and scaffolded conversations with trained clinicians. The conversations were videotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT; Miller & Chapman, 1991). Results: Results indicate that participants showed improvements in their use of spontaneous clauses, and a greater use of pronouns, verbs, and bound morphemes. These improvements were sustained and generalized to conversations with familiar partners. Conclusion: The results demonstrate the positive effects of the conversation-based intervention for improving the expressive vocabulary and grammatical skills of children with severe motor speech disorders and expressive language delay who use augmentative and alternative communication. Clinical and theoretical implications of conversation-based interventions are discussed and future research needs are identified.

Adult co-construction with children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has been found to facilitate child communicative competence in general, but few studies have examined adult co-construction during the telling of personal narratives. This study explored the use of adult co-constructive strategies during personal storytelling with a child who used AAC. Case study discourse analysis methodology was utilized to analyze the types of co-construction strategies employed and the effectiveness of these co-construction strategies during an intervention session with a speech-language pathologist and a child who used AAC. The study concluded that use of child-centered co-construction strategies, including elicitation, question asking, prompts, positive praise, repetitions, and modeling of vocabulary and grammar, might be a facilitative factor in supporting the personal narratives of children who use AAC. Clinical implications for using child-centered co-construction during dyadic exchanges with children who use AAC are discussed. (Contains 1 table.)

Narrative abilities have been linked to literacy, communicative competence and development of identity. Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) may be at risk for difficulties in the development of narrative skills due to differences in their language learning opportunities and limitations of their AAC systems. The structural dimensions of the narrative discourse produced by children who use AAC have been observed to be poorly organized, limited in coherence and severely impoverished in both vocabulary and grammar. In addition, the children usually rely heavily on narrative co-construction and may not be given sufficient opportunities by their communication partners to provide narrative features. This study describes the process used to support the development of autonomous narrative skills of an eight-year old child who uses a voice output communication aid (VOCA) to communicate and who demonstrates significant delays in narrative formation. Results indicate that narratives produced with her VOCA improved in both linguistic and story complexity following intervention that targeted understanding and use of story structures.

The ability to narrate a story is fundamental to the development of overall communicative competence and involves the coordination of a variety of knowledge structures and linguistic abilities. In this study, the narrative discourse abilities of four children who use AAC are described in the context of five tasks designed to elicit a spectrum of narrative skills. Assessment was achieved through application of the Narrative Assessment Profile tool [Bliss, L. S., McCabe, A., & Miranda A. E. (1998). Narrative assessment profile: Discourse analysis for school-age children. "Journal of Communication Disorders," 31, 347-362.] and analysis of seven major story elements. Our results indicate that most narrative discourse dimensions in our participating children appeared to be compromised and in need of intervention. Discussion includes aspects of narrative intervention and suggested topics for further research. Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to: (1) create a list of issues involved in the development of narrative abilities of children who depend on augmentative and alternative communication systems (AAC) and (2) describe the issues involved in assessing the narrative skills of children who use AAC.

Purpose: The development of culturally and linguistically appropriate resources to support communication interventions for underserved communities is an urgent necessity. The purpose of the study was to obtain stakeholder feedback on vocabulary items from a Sepedi core vocabulary list developed as a resource for vocabulary selection for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, and to expand the list based on stakeholders' vocabulary recommendations. Method: A questionnaire was used to obtain the ratings of 57 stakeholders regarding the importance of including 155 Sepedi words from the Sepedi core vocabulary list on an AAC system for a child with receptive language skills at the level of a 4-year-old or higher. Stakeholders also suggested additional words to include on the system. Result: All words were rated as important or very important. However, there was a statistically significant inverse relationship between the average frequency of occurrence of words belonging to a specific category and the average importance rating that stakeholders assigned to words in that category. A total of 48 words were additionally suggested by three or more stakeholders. Conclusion: Stakeholder ratings validated the list as relevant to consult in vocabulary selection for Sepedi AAC systems for children. Stakeholder-suggested words may be a useful supplement to this list. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to detect patterns in clause construction structural changes produced by four participants aged 9;5–13;7 (years;months) with motor speech disorders who used speech-generating devices. Sequences of adult–child interactions, drawn from the data of a larger study focused on enhancing vocabulary and grammar skills, were examined. This current study comprises a secondary analysis of a corpus of 29 conversations totalling 808.36 min, analysing clause structures by type, linguistic complexity, and intensity of adult prompts (number of turns). Results show that, over time, the participants' clause structure complexity increased through addition of phrase-internal elements such as inflections, articles, and prepositions. Use of specific grammatical elements followed the developmental stages observed in children with typical development. For all participants, the personal pronoun I (first-person singular) emerged before she, he (third-person singular), and we or they (plural). Participants with the highest number of adult–child co-constructed clauses also had the highest number of well-formed clauses. The intensity of adult prompts increased as clause structures became more complex and as participants needed more support. Implications for practice and theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Project Building Bridges is a federally sponsored program that prepares speechlanguage pathology graduate students to provide culturally and linguistically responsive services to school-age children with complex communication needs from diverse backgrounds. Project scholars receive evidence-based training in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) assessment, AAC intervention, collaborative teaming, AAC applications supporting the language and literacy skills of culturally and linguistically diverse children, and professional development in collaborative AAC settings. Project content and needed competencies for practicing professionals who are interested in expanding their knowledge of culturally responsive services for children who benefit from AAC are described. Precompetency training and postcompetency training data from the perspectives of the scholars' self-assessment and the clinical educators' assessment supporting the growth and development of these competencies are presented. Direction for implementing culturally and linguistically responsive AAC services in educational settings is provided. Conclusion: Project Building Bridges responds to the need to train future licensed and certified speech-language pathologists to work effectively with culturally and linguistically diverse children between the ages of birth to 22 years who have significant disabilities and augmentative communication needs. Data collected indicate that knowledge and skills improved from both the perspective of the graduate student and the perspectives of the AAC speechlanguage pathology clinical educator in school settings as a result of the training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For children with typical development, language is learned through everyday discursive interaction. Adults mediate child participation in such interactions through the deployment of a range of co-constructive strategies, including repeating, questioning, prompting, expanding, and reformulating the child’s utterances. Adult reformulations of child utterances, also known as recasts, have also been shown to relate to the acquisition of linguistic structures in children with language and learning disabilities and children and adults learning a foreign language. In this paper we discuss the theoretical basis and empirical evidence for the use of different types of recasts as a major language learning catalyst, and what may account for their facilitative effects. We consider the occurrence of different types of recasts in AAC-mediated interactions and their potential for language facilitation, within the typical operational and linguistic constraints of such interactions. We also consider the benefit of explicit and corrective forms of recasts for language facilitation in conversations with children who rely on AAC. We conclude by outlining future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study analyzes the core vocabulary used by typically developing school-aged English-speaking children in the United States while participating in a variety of school activities. The language of typically developing children, some of whom spoke English as a second language was recorded, transcribed and analyzed to identify the most frequently used words across samples. An inventory of oral core vocabulary of typically developing school-aged children resulted from this analysis. This inventory can be used as a source list for vocabulary selection for school-aged children with AAC needs. Implications for vocabulary selection are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative abilities have been identified as a link to successful school achievement and, in particular, to the acquisition of literacy. Children who use AAC may be at risk of impaired narrative facility due to the differences in their language learning experiences, limitation of their AAC systems, and limitations from constrained access to physical and social environments. In this study, the elements of narrative that emerged in the interactions between an 8-year-old child who used an AAC device and her teacher are described. This assessment was achieved through use of the Narrative Assessment Profile (Bliss, McCabe, & Miranda, 1998) in the context of five tasks designed to elicit a spectrum of narrative features. Results indicate that the interactions between the child and her teacher made it difficult to assess whether or not the child had control of certain features of narrative. From a purely structural analysis, most narrative discourse dimensions appeared to be severely compromised and therefore in need of immediate intervention. Discussion includes aspects of narrative intervention and suggested topics for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports descriptive findings regarding the scaffolding strategies used by an experienced practitioner during a shared book reading session with a student who uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Specific scaffolding strategies are described and, in addition, the level of semantic complexity targeted by the practitioner during the session was examined. The majority of scaffolding strategies targeted higher levels of semantic complexity such as metalanguage, inference and interpretation. Results of this work may contribute to the design of storybook reading as a context for narrative language intervention for children who use AAC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]