What relationships exist between nouns and verbs and the use of prepositions, adverbs, and adjectives in children and adolescents who use speech generating devices?

Abstract

The relationships between the use of nouns and verbs, and other word classes have been well established in the typical language development literature. However, questions remain as to whether the same relationships are seen in the language use of individuals who use graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The aim of the study was to examine relationships between the use of verbs and nouns, and the use of prepositions, adverbs, and adjectives through a secondary analysis of language transcripts taken from 12 children and adolescents who used aided AAC in conversation with an adult. A series of multiple linear mixed-effect regression analyses showed a positive predictive association between the use of verbs and the use of prepositions and adverbs, as well as a positive predictive relationship between the use of nouns and the use of adjectives. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• Adjectives
• adverbs
• augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)
• prepositions

Acknowledgment

The work presented herein was partially completed in requirement of the first author’s master’s thesis.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Notes

1 The AACP measures skills in operational, linguistic, social and strategic competence, and groups those skills in five levels, from simple and early functioning to independent use and AAC system mastery. A user of AAC at Level III purposefully uses their system to engage in dialogue and has begun to combine words to create simple phrases.

2 Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4 (Dunn & Dunn, 2007); Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (Martin & Brownell, 2010).

3 Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language–Third Edition (Carrow-Woolfolk and Allen, 1999); Test of Language Development-Primary: Fourth Edition (Hammill & Newcomer, 2008); Test of Language Development-Intermedate (4th ed.) (Hammill & Newcomer, 2008).

4 For four participants performance on morphological judgement tasks did not yield a percentile score.

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11 Unity Language Systems is a registered trademark of Semantic Compaction Systems, Inc. minspeak.com.

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