Community building in deprived communicative environments: supporting participation and belonging for children with special communicative needs

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how children with intellectual disabilities and special communicative needs use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) and sign-to-speech. Community participation, playing and learning, depends on communication. Everyday school settings may represent phonocentric (verbal speech) communicative environments which creates barriers for participation and belonging for children who use AAC and sign-to-speech, leaving many of these children lonely, muted, and frustrated. In Norway, specialized kindergartens/school for sign language is phased out. A case study of two families, each with an intellectually disabled daughter who uses sign-to-speech and staff in kindergartens and schools, is used as a fulcrum for our discussion of communication as key to community building and community participation and friendship. Community work as a cross-professional approach can affect conditions for participation for these children. Suggestions for how community participation can be facilitated and pave ways for play and belonging for children with special communicative needs are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• Alternative and augmented communication (AAC)
• children with intellectual disability
• enriched environments
• community participation
• belonging

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to extend their thanks to the children and their families, and pre-schools and school staff who accepted our invitation to participate in this study and subsequently shared their knowledge and experience with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was Supported by the Regional Council of Norway, RFF-Vest, 2018/16264-2. Ethical approval NSD Data protection Service no 865782/2019. Personal annual research grants from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.