AT/AAC - Literacy Intervention Group

AT/AAC - Literacy Intervention Group

Annotated Bibliography

07/09/2012

Bruce, S. M., Trief, E., Cascella, P. W. (2011). Teacher’ and speech-language pathologists’

perceptions about tangible symbols intervention: Efficacy, generalization, and

recommendations. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 27 (3), 172-182.

The authors conducted an intervention with 51 students who have multiple disabilities and communicate at a pre-symbolic level. They implemented tangible symbols for use during transitions in the school setting. 29 teachers and speech-language pathologists were interviewed following the intervention period of seven months. The actual focus of this article was the interviews and not the intervention itself. Maximizing student independence by teaching a way to anticipate events by using a daily schedule was the context to asking the questions “How do you feel this communication form (the tangible symbols) helped the children to study?”, “What do you see as a future direction in your class-room for the use of the tangible symbols?”, “Do you feel that the symbols should be sent home to the parents? If so, how can we encourage the parents to use the symbols in their home?”, and “Do you have any comments or suggestions for future use of the symbols?” (p.174). The findings were that the students benefited from participation by learning the symbols, using the symbols and improved transitioning between activities. The adults also benefited in learning from this experience. The teachers and SLP’s responded that generalization in the home is important, and different opinions on how to train the parents to use the tangible symbols were given.

Flores, M., Musgrove, K., Renner, S., Hinton, V., Strozier, S., Franklin, S., Hil, D. (2012). A

comparison of communication using the apple iPad and a picture-based system.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 28 (2), 74-84.

This study compared the use of the Apple iPad to the use of picture cards with five elementary school students with disabilities who were attending an extended school year program. The study was conducted over the course of this program, which was five weeks long, three hours per day and five days per week. The study was conducted during snack time. Students were either presented with a Velcro sentence strip and Boardmakerpicture cards, or the iPad with the application, Pick a Word, using photographs. The application showed the pictures and said the word or phrase as it was programmed. The voice spoken on the application was of a 10-year-old girl, and the study was all boys. Students were individually trained to use the iPad for the snack routine. The snack choices were pretzels, goldfish, cookies and a drink. The snack routine was the same each day. Students were individually asked what they wanted and they had 5 seconds to respond with a request, or it went to the next student’s turn. The condition of picture-based or iPad continued to switch every three days, and data was collected. The results were mixed. Although there was an increase in requests with the iPad, there was not a clear pattern across all students. The teachers preferred the iPad in that it was ready to use, quicker, and picture cards require set up time and are not as easy to move from one place to another.

Nunes, D., R., P. (2008). AAC interventions for autism: A research summary. International

Journal of Special Education, 23 (2), 17-26.

This article reviewed fifty-sixpeer-reviewed studies from 1980 to 2007 on the use of AAC with people with autism. The topics that this article focused on were the types of AAC used, the experimental design, the language intervention goals, setting and intervention agents, and characteristics of the participants. Eighteen studies used total communication/sign language, or gestures. Twenty-six studies taught visual symbols, nine studies used speech-generating devices and three studies combined aided and unaided systems. Forty-four studies implemented single-subject research methodology, three were descriptive case studies, and five of the studies analyzed used group design. Forty-three of the fifty-six studies focused on teaching communication/language production skills. Eight studies focused on receptive skills and five studies focused on receptive and expressive communication. Twenty studies took place in artificial learning environments, nineteen took place in school or community settings, six took place in the child’s home, eight took place in both artificial and natural settings and three were in the school and home. In most studies the participants worked with the experimenter or primary interventionist. Out of the 154 participants, only 26 were female. The age span was two to thirty-one years. Most were described as having some degree of intellectual disability. The success of all this literature is that over time the focus of language has expanded to include nonverbal systems and to focus on what the person is capable of doing.

Trottier, N., Kamp, L., Mirenda, P. (2011). Effects of peer-mediated instruction to teach use

of speech-generating devices to students with autism in social game routines.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 27 (1), 26-39.

This study investigated if peers could be taught to support speech generating device (SGD) use by students with ASD while playing a game and if in this situation the student with ASD may have a spontaneous appropriate communication. Two male students, both eleven years old participated in the study. Both used picture symbols prior to learning the SGD, one had only had his SGD for two months and the other student had had his for ten months. Each student had three friends to play games with. A multiple-baseline, multiple-probe design was used. The design included three phases: baseline, phase I – training of the friends, and phase II – friends take over and play the game. The intervention appeared to be effective at increasing appropriate prompted and spontaneous communicative acts during the time games were played with friends.

Van Der Schuit, M., Segers, E., Van Balkom, H., Stoep, J., & Verhoeven, L. (2010). Immersive

communication intervention for speaking and non-speaking children with

intellectual disabilities. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 26 (3), 203-

220.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Klin Studio intervention, which addresses both home and day care settings, by asking what extent does the intervention promote the development of vocabulary and production of multi-word utterances, and to what extent are there differences in the development of receptive and expressive language skills during the intervention (p.207). Ten children with complex communication needs participated in this study learning vocabulary by way of incorporating AAC in the environment. They ranged in age from two to six at the start of the study. The children were separated into two groups, five who primarily spoke and five who used AAC and other means to communicate. The intervention was two years long, with the children attending five days per week in separate groups for about three hours per day. All children showed significant gains in receptive and expressive language. The speaking children showed greater development in receptive language than non-speaking children. Overall the intervention was effective.