Designing electronic graphic symbol-based AAC systems: a scoping review. Part 1: system description

Abstract

Purpose

This is the first of two papers summarizing studies reporting on the design of electronic graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, to determine the state of the field. The aim of this paper was to provide an overview of the general characteristics of the studies and to describe the features of the systems designed.

Methods

A scoping review was conducted. A multifaceted search resulted in the identification of 28 studies meeting the selection criteria. Data were extracted relating to four areas of interest, namely (1) the general characteristics of the studies, (2) features of the systems designed, (3) availability of the systems to the public, and (4) the design processes followed. In this paper, findings relating to the first three areas are presented.

Results

Most study authors were affiliated to fields of engineering and/or computer science and came from high-income countries. Most studies reported the design of AAC applications loaded onto mobile technology devices. Common system features included customizable vocabulary items, the inclusion of graphic symbols from both established AAC libraries and other sources, a dynamic grid display, and the inclusion of digital and/or synthetic speech output. Few systems were available to the public.

Conclusions

Limited justifications for many of the complex design decisions were provided in the studies, possibly due to limited involvement of rehabilitation professionals during the design process. Furthermore, few studies reported on the design of graphic symbol-based AAC systems specifically for middle- and low-income contexts and also for multilingual populations.

Implications for rehabilitation

• Complex design decisions about electronic graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems should be made purposefully and with sufficient justification.

• Increased collaboration between designers and rehabilitation professionals during the design of electronic graphic symbol-based systems could improve the products.

• Design of AAC systems for populations residing in low and middle-income contexts and also for multilingual populations are urgently needed.

Keywords:

• Assistive technology
• augmentative and alternative communication
• design
• electronic AAC systems
• graphic symbols

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the research assistants who helped with data extraction

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 The term “graphic symbol” is used in this article to describe two-dimensional representations that take the form of pictures or line drawings [37,96]. This definition therefore encompasses a wide range of more or less linguistic representations but excludes traditional orthography. For a detailed classification of aided symbols used in the field of AAC, see Pampoulou and Fuller [37].

Additional information

Funding

This scoping review was made possible with the support from the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR). SADiLaR is a research infrastructure established the Department of Science and Technology of the South African government as part of the South African Research Infrastructure Roadmap(SARIR).