The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of interface display and respondent group on listener attitudes toward and perceived communicative competence of persons with aphasia. The Attitudes Toward Nonspeaking Persons scale and the Communicative Competence Scale was used to measure listener attitudes and communicative competence,…

The purpose of this paper was to review best-practice methods of collecting and analyzing speech production data from minimally verbal autistic speakers. Data on speech production data in minimally verbal individuals are valuable for a variety of purposes, including phenotyping, clinical assessment, and treatment monitoring. Both perceptual…

Parental interventions can help parents use strategies to support their child's language and communication development. The ComAlong courses are parental interventions that focus on responsive communication, enhanced milieu teaching, and augmentative and alternative communication. This interview study aimed to investigate the course leaders'…

Background: Few formal instruments exist to assess the communicative competence of patients hospitalized in intensive care units (ICUs). This can limit interventions by health professionals. Aims: To map the categories and instruments for assessing the communicative competence of adult patients with minimal response in ICUs. Methods &…

Individuals with multiple disabilities are among the most challenging to serve and AAC teams often lack direction in determining effective interventions. The purpose of this scoping review was to summarize the research evidence on AAC interventions for individuals with complex communication needs and simultaneous motor, and visual impairments as…

Paraeducators frequently support children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) but often lack access to effective training opportunities. Similarly, special education teachers are responsible for supervising paraeducators but often lack effective training on AAC and paraeducator supervision. The POWR+ (Prepare the activity and…

This study examined whether an artificial intelligence-based automatic speech recognition system can accurately assess students' reading fluency and reading level. Participants were 120 fourth-grade students attending public schools in Türkiye. Students read a grade-level text out loud while their voice was recorded. Two experts and the artificial…

This tutorial offers speech-language pathologists (SLPs) an opportunity to consider the theoretical constructs of language acquisition theory and the multifactorial determinants that can impinge on the language acquisition process for children with complex communication needs. The system of constraints observed through the lens of optimality…

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…

Social positioning involves positioning individuals with extensive support needs (ESN) in proximity to and facing a communication partner, with access to a speech-generating device (SGD). We used a multiple probe design to evaluate if social positioning would increase the symbolic and nonsymbolic communication of 10 adults with ESN when they were…

Purpose: Aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) displays are often designed as symmetrical row--column grids, with each square in the grid containing a symbol. To maximize vocabulary on displays, symbols are often placed close to one another, and background color cuing is used to signal/differentiate symbols across different…

Purpose of the Review: We review the evidence-based POWR intervention which provides training to communication partners to support children with complex communication needs (CCN) by teaching steps to support child communication: Prepare the activity and AAC, Offer opportunities for communication, Wait for the child's communication, and Respond to…

The purpose of this study was to address the research question "To what extent does perceived usefulness (PU) predict the willingness to adopt augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technology among caregivers of children with Down syndrome (DS)?" as well as "To what extent does perceived ease of use (PEU) predict the…

Four parents of children with complex communication needs (CCN) participated in a systematic instructional coaching intervention via telepractice. Parents learned to implement a multicomponent augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) support strategy during unstructured play activities. The strategy involved (a) creating opportunities, (b)…

Many children on the autism spectrum struggle significantly in their early language development, entering kindergarten with little or no functional speech (Kasari et al., 2014; Rose et al., 2016). Naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions (NDBIs) are a promising approach for supporting early language and communication development for…