Assessment of aided language comprehension and use in children and adolescents with severe speech and motor impairments

Abstract

There is limited knowledge about aided language comprehension and use in children who use aided communication and who are considered to have a relatively good comprehension of spoken language. This study’s purpose was to assess their aided language skills. The participants were 96 children and adolescents who used communication aids (aided group) and 73 children and adolescents with natural speech (reference group), aged 5 to 15 years. All of the participants who used aided communication were regarded by their teachers or professionals as having age-appropriate language comprehension. All of the participants completed (a) standardized tests of visual perception, non-verbal reasoning, and comprehension of spoken language, and (b) tasks designed for this study that measured comprehension and production of graphic utterances through communicative problem solving. Using their own communication systems, the participants achieved an average of 72% correct on the graphic symbol comprehension task items, and 63% on the expressive tasks. The participants with natural speech achieved an average of 88% correct on comprehension items, and 93–96% accuracy on production items. The differences between groups were significant on all the tasks and standardized tests. There was considerable variation within the group of participants who used aided communication, and the results reveal a need to develop instruments with norms for aided language competence that can inform the implementation of interventions to support aided language development.

Keywords:

• Assessment
• aided language use
• comprehension
• co-construction
• cognition

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participating children, families, teachers, and therapists for giving their time to the project, and the following colleagues for help with collection of data: Susan Balandin, Hans van Balkom, Carmen Basil, Debora Deliberato, Sally Clendon, Marc Coronas, Margareta Jenniche, Kaisa Launonen, Leila Nunes, Elisabete Mendes, Janice Murray, Martine Smith, Gloria Soto, Lourdes Tavares, Chih-Kang Yang, Catia Walter, and Ole Wriedt.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 PCS^TM is a product of the Mayer-Johnson Company, a part of Tobii Dynavox, of Pittsburgh, PA, USA. http://www.mayer-johnson.com/category/symbols-and-photos

2 Pictograms is a product of the Pictocom International of Rosetown, Canada. http://www.pictoworld.com

3 Bliss^© is available from the Blissymbolics Communication International of Gothenburg Sweden. http://www.blissymbolics.org

4 Minspeak is a product of the Semantic Compaction Systems of Pittsburgh, PA, USA. http://www.minspeak.com/

5 Smith-Dahlgren Sandberg Spelling Scale (SDSS) was developed by Martine Smith and Annika Dahlgren Sandberg.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy, Canada, Stiftelsen Sophies Minde and University of Oslo, Norway, and Forskningsrådet för Arbetsliv och Socialventenskap, Sweden [grant no. 2006-0777].