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Abstract
The Inventory of Potential Communicative Acts (IPCA) is an interview protocol aimed at identifying communicative responses of people with developmental disability. The present review summarizes research into the reliability and validity of the IPCA and its utility for communication profiling and intervention planning. Of the 17 IPCA studies reviewed, most (n = 10) used the IPCA to map the communication profiles of individuals with different types of developmental disabilities. These studies suggest that many nonverbal/minimally verbal individuals appear to use a range of prelinguistic forms for both instrumental and social communication purposes. Four studies compared IPCA results to structured observations with the results suggesting the IPCA may have adequate predictive validity. Two studies used the IPCA to select intervention targets and one study used it to evaluate intervention effects. The one study on inter-informant reliability reported adequate agreement. The IPCA appears to be useful for identifying potential communication acts, intervention planning, and for mapping the communication profiles of nonverbal/minimally verbal individuals with developmental disabilities. Additional research on inter-informant agreement and future research on test/re-test reliability and concurrent validity is recommended.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Sigafoos co-authored the IPCA, but receives no royalties from its sale or distribution. The IPCA is freely available for unrestricted use from the first author. Peter B. Marschik’s and Dajie Zhang’s contribution was supported by Rett Elternhilfe e.v. (Germany) and Rett Syndrome Europe as well as the Volkswagen Foundation.