AAC: Organizing Direct Selection
Dynamic Displays for Preschoolers
My research paper, Organizing Direct Selection Dynamic Displays for Preschoolers, explores the most effective page layout menu for a preschooler using dynamic displays to access a speech generating device for communication. Of particular interest is the literature review, which states that several studies have shown that most dynamic displays are not set up with a child’s developmental language milestones in mind. According to the studies highlighted, dynamic displays most often utilize navigation that is more aligned with the language processing skills of an adult without disabilities, than those of a child with moderate-to-severe expressive, and possibly receptive language, deficits.
In exploring this discrepancy, this paper highlights a study which sought to identify the most intuitive menu and layout for typical three-year-olds. In that study, ten children were randomly assigned to three dynamic display layouts of vocabulary words and asked to navigate the secondary and tertiary page sets to create spontaneous and prompted utterances. The three layouts included: 1) vocabulary text and a symbol organized on a grid, 2) Vocabulary text and screen shots of additional related vocabulary organized in a grid, and 3) a contextual scene in which the vocabulary on the secondary and tertiary pages was pictured in the scene. Researchers found that children who utilized the contextual scene to access the dynamic display were most effective in producing novel vocabulary and prompted utterances. This seems to suggest that the contextual scene most closely matched the children’s innate schema for learning, and thus, was the easiest menu model for the children to learn.
This is a critical issue for SLPs concerned with providing speech and language services to young children who need assistive and augmentative communication resources. In this paper, I sought to better understand how technology can serve its users. In this instance, that means that an SLP who is evaluating a young child for an AAC device must have a good understanding of the individual child’s strengths and needs as well as a strong understanding of the tenets of child language learning. Only by understanding each of these can effectively evaluate 1) whether a given device is appropriate for her client and 2) if so, which dynamic display menu layout best maximizes the child’s communication potential.
What else should SLPs consider during AAC evaluations?
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