Designing effective AAC displays for individuals with developmental or acquired disabilities: State of the science and future research directions

Abstract

This paper reviews research on the impact of AAC display variables on visual attention and performance of children with developmental disabilities and adults with acquired conditions, and considers implications for designing effective visual scene displays (VSDs) or grids. When using VSDs with children with developmental disabilities or adults with acquired conditions, research supports the use of personalized photo VSDs that include familiar people engaged in meaningful activities, with navigation bars with thumbnail VSDs, located adjacent to the main VSD. Adults with acquired conditions seem to benefit from the inclusion of text boxes adjacent to the scene. Emerging evidence supports the use of motion to capture visual attention to VSDs (video VSDs) or to specific elements in VSDs. When using grid displays with children with developmental disabilities, research supports the use of spatial cues and clustering based on internal symbol colour to facilitate visual searching and selection. Background colour does not seem to facilitate searching for symbols on smaller displays, and may actually distract children from processing the meaningful components of symbols. Preliminary research suggests that the organization of onscreen keyboards and the number, types, and pairings of symbols in grids may impact performance of adults with acquired conditions. Directions for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• AAC
• grid display
• research and development
• visual cognitive processing
• visual scene display

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This paper is part of a special issue of the AAC Journal on the state of the science. Its contents were developed under the following grants: (a) Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (The RERC on AAC) from the US Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) grant # 90RE5017; (b) National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) P01 HD 25995; (c) NICHD R01 HD083381; and (d) The Hintz Family Endowed Chair on Children’s Communicative Competence. The contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the funding agency, and endorsement by the federal government should not be assumed.