Perspectives and experiences of adults who use AAC on making and keeping friends

Abstract

Research on friendship consistently finds that individuals with disabilities, including those who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), have fewer friendships than individuals without disabilities, and that those friendships lack depth. Although the literature relating to the friendship experiences of individuals who use AAC is limited, some first-hand accounts written by individuals who use AAC describe positive interactions with friends and robust social networks. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the concept of friendship for individuals who use AAC from their own perspective. For the study, eight adults who used AAC participated in online interviews and focus groups to answer questions about friendship experiences. The research team identified patterns in the data and analyzed information according to the following themes: Definitions of Friendship, Factors Related to Self, Factors Related to Peers/Friends, Factors Related to the Environment, and Factors Related to Time. While many of the definitions and factors discussed could apply to any friendship, some factors specific to AAC and individuals who use AAC were identified. Implications for stakeholders relevant to the identified facilitating factors are discussed.

Keywords:

• Friendship
• augmentative and alternative communication
• disability
• online interview
• focus group

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the participants who shared their ideas and experiences and to recognize the efforts of three graduate students, Sarah Cooper, Katherine Kopystanski, and Casandra Swindler, who contributed their time to this project.

Disclosure statement

The author reports no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1 Facebook is an online social networking service. www.facebook.com

2 Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to send and read messages with a maximum of 280 characters. https://twitter.com/

3 Wikispace is a web application that allows collaborative content development. https://www.wikispaces.com/

4 Non-binary is a term used by some individuals who do not identify their gender as within the binary of male and female. For more information, see Richards et al. (2016).

5 NVivo is a registered trademark of QSR International, located in Victoria, Australia. https://www.qsrinternational.com/

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Council on Research and Creativity at Florida State University.