AAC Performance and Usability Issues: The Effect of AAC Technology on the Communicative Process

Abstract

In this article, Clark's theory of language use is applied to the study of conversations of augmented speakers and their addressees. Discussion focuses on how shared meaning—called common ground—is achieved, the process of grounding utterances under real-time constraints, and how the media characteristics of devices affect the grounding process. A joint action analysis of grounding will be applied to examples of word-board and Voice Output Communication Aid (VOCA)-mediated conversations to show how participants organize their talk around specific media constraints to conduct their conversations and solve communication problems. The authors argue that this model of device-mediated communication performance, or some variety of it, has the potential to reconcile many of the individual research findings in this field within a single explanatory framework. If successful, this approach could be used to evaluate future research with an empirically-based model of communication performance.

Key Words:

• Augmentative and alternative communication
• Interaction
• Conversation
• Grounding
• Joint action
• Design