Abstract
Springtime sunlight spills onto a sea of 18 preschool children gathering around their teacher for circle time. A small storm of laughter, squeals, and child-sized limbs swirls on the light blue rectangular rug. A couple of children situate themselves along the perimeter, one of whom, Sam, sits in a blue cube chair with a green electronic device across his lap.
“All eyes on me,” directs their captain, as she points and begins to count by twos the pairs of eyes that linger in her direction. “Two, four, six, eight . . . ”
Among the chatter, many children shout out numbers as they redirect their attention, a glint of hope for teacher recognition in their eyes.
The emerging quiet is broken by an electronic tenor, “macaroni,” radiating from Sam’s device; a grin spreads across his face.
Laughter erupts from the children. “He said macaroni!” one classmate narrates.
The teacher chooses to ignore this reference to macaroni along with the associated laughter, while a paraprofessional, seated behind Sam, silently pushes a button on his device, presumably to turn down the volume of its insolence.
The teacher flashes all the children a quick peek at the cover of “The Cat in the Hat” while explaining today’s group activity: finding words that rhyme. One child interrupts with a tale about his cat, to which the teacher reminds him with eye gaze and a finger to her lips that this is not the time for his story.
After reading the first page, the teacher raises a query, “What rhymes with play?” A few hands fly into the air, while one child blurts out a spoken response.
“Remember to raise your hand,” the teacher reminds him. He immediately raises his hand, and she calls on him for response.
“House!” he offers with enthusiasm.
“House . . . play,” the teacher muses aloud, “not quite. Who else has an idea?”
Again hands fly into the air like seagulls at the surf. Teacher and pupils fall into a rhythm as seemingly familiar as the tide—at least for some of them. Sam, though seated near the group for the entire activity, does not take part in the question-answer routine. One gets the sense that perhaps he is tethered to port somehow, never quite making it out to the open sea.
Introduction
Electronic technologies are playing an increasing role in mediating patterns of social interaction within the classroom. This trend includes augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, like the device used by Sam from the opening vignette. The advent of lightweight smart tablets with a diversity of communication-oriented applications at a fraction of the price of traditional AAC devices increases the accessibility and potential application of such devices in the classroom.
AAC in general has proven effective for many children in regard to decreasing challenging behavior, enabling communication of wants and needs, and supporting speech development (Millar, Light, & Schlosser, 2006; Mirenda, 1997; Schlosser & Wendt, 2008; Snell, Chen, & Hooever, 2006). However, evidence of successful AAC use is tempered by sobering statistics regarding limited communicative functions, barriers to successful implementation, and system abandonment (Johnson, Inglebret, Jones, & Ray, 2006; Lund & Light, 2007). One area that remains particularly challenging is the successful integration of AAC systems within sustained social interactions for children with speech-language impairments (cf. Mellman, DeThorne, & Hengst, 2010). Given the increasing availability of AAC systems and the documented limitations in regard to successful implementation across everyday contexts, this article aims to highlight the importance of integrating AAC within a broad communication framework. In direct relation to the Initial Special Education Professionals in Early Childhood Special Education/Early Intervention (Birth to Eight) Standards (Council for Exceptional Children, 2007), this article provides a theoretical framework (Standard I, ICCKI) to guide special education practices toward embedding learning opportunities in everyday activities (Standard V, ECSES3) by structuring social environments to promote successful communicative interactions (Standard V, ECE5S4) particularly for children who utilize AAC (Standard VI, ICC6K4).
The field of communication sciences and disorders has long differentiated speech and language as separate but related processes that refer to the sensory-motor and linguistic skills of an individual, respectively. This stands in contrast to communication, which refers more broadly to an exchange of ideas among individuals (cf. Pence & Justice, 2008). To highlight this distinction, consider a child alone in his or her room repeating lines from a movie. This child is using speech and language skills, but is not communicating with anyone. In contrast, consider a child who points to a cookie jar and looks to his or her mother. This child is clearly communicating but is not using speech or language to do so. In our communications with caregivers of children who are largely “nonverbal,” parents often tell us they want their children to speak so that they can share ideas and know what their children are thinking. One mother shared with us that in her dreams, she and her son with limited verbal abilities can “know each other’s minds.” Inherent in these messages from caregivers is a longing not so much for speech and language, per se, but for successful communication.
“If you think of your own experiences, you have probably noticed that the degree of success in your communicative interactions depends on what you are doing, whom you are interacting with, the resources available to you, and the nature of the relationships you have built up with people over time.”
To help us understand what is involved in supporting successful communication for all children, including those who use AAC technologies, we draw here on sociocultural and practice theory approaches to child development and learning (e.g., Bruner, 1996; Cole, 1998; Wells, 1999). These approaches offer a useful theoretical framework that defines communication as a social accomplishment, not as an isolated individual ability or a set of testable skills. Seen as a social accomplishment, we understand communication as always occurring within specific activities for specific purposes (e.g., answering a teacher’s question, sharing small talk with friends). Successful communication is then tied to how well those activities are accomplished. Thus, communication is also shared by all participants in the interaction and accomplished through their use of a wide range of resources (e.g., talk, gestures, joint attention).
Within any given interaction, there are multiple ways for individuals to communicate and coordinate with others, so successful communication often depends on people flexibly shifting the ways they coordinate with each other during the interaction (Hengst & Duff, 2007). For example, when a speaker in a conversation stumbles over a word, he or she may substitute gestures or actions for the missing word, or listeners may fill in words for the speaker, or in some cases, the word is simply left out and the conversation goes on without it. Among familiar communication partners, this happens so smoothly that, as long as the point gets across and the conversation continues, we do not even notice how such success was achieved. Successful communication depends on the coordination of people and resources.
Finally, understood as a social accomplishment, communication is supported through the shared histories people bring to their interactions with each other (e.g., best friends, strangers) and to the activities at hand (e.g., playing a video game). In this sense, successful communication grows out of repeated opportunities for people to work together. If you think of your own experiences, you have probably noticed that the degree of success in your communicative interactions depends on what you are doing, whom you are interacting with, the resources available to you, and the nature of the relationships you have built up with people over time.
Adults readily focus on prioritizing communication success through whatever means are available as they communicate with others during everyday work and social activities. However, in school settings during interactions with children using AAC devices, there is a tendency to lose sight of successful communication as the overarching goal. As an example, Mellman et al. (2010) reported a scenario from her classroom observations of Alex (a 4-year-old boy who utilized a speech-generating AAC device) in which a paraprofessional held up two crayons toward Alex and asked him which color he wanted. The paraprofessional specified, “Tell me with your device,” as opposed to giving Alex the flexibility to choose his form of response (e.g., using a pointing gesture to select the color he wanted). Here, the paraprofessional appeared not to recognize and value all the resources available for communication, making AAC use the end rather than seeing it as one of many means to successful communication.
In this article, we outline four principles, grounded in the framework of communicative competence, that encourage us all (parents and professionals) to “keep our eye on communicative success as the ultimate prize.” Specifically, the four guiding principles, summarized in Table 1 are (a) support social interaction within meaningful activity, (b) share responsibility for successful interactions, (c) encourage multiple forms of communication, and (d) draw on shared histories and prepare for future interactions. In the sections below, we will describe each of these principles and apply them to the opening vignette. Our goal is to encourage professionals and caregivers to reflect on their own communicative practices with children who use AAC and to foster successful communication and participation within classrooms and communities at large.
A Summary of the 4 Principles and Guiding Questions Associated With a Framework of Communicative Competence
Support Social Interaction Within Meaningful Activity
When taking up a framework of communicative competence, consideration of context becomes paramount. Word production is not considered an isolated skill but as a potential message deployed for a particular communicative purpose. To highlight the important role of context (i.e., activity), consider how Sam’s production of the word “macaroni” would likely be perceived and “taken up” very differently depending on whether the activity is book reading during circle time versus a group sing-along of Yankee Doodle Dandy, with the lyrics “Yankee Doodle went to London, just to ride a pony, stuck a feather in his hat, and called it macaroni!” In the sing-along, Sam’s production would likely be taken up as direct participation in the activity, whereas during the preparation of book reading, Sam’s production appeared to be taken up as an act of silliness by many of the children and as a potential disruption by the paraprofessional. Note that in this book reading versus sing-along example, the actual word being produced (i.e., macaroni) is not different, but its meaning is interpreted differently based on the activity. Consequently, the guiding question for those of us supporting a child who uses AAC is “What is/are the relevant activities at hand?”
“Within the framework of communicative competence, caregivers, teachers, therapists, and peers are all seen as partners with the child, working together to accomplish activities and communicate messages.”
When thinking about the relevant activities, it is important to note that multiple goals and activities are always at play. In thinking about the opening vignette, the guiding question leads us to ask, “What is the teacher trying to accomplish here? What are the children’s goals? How can we better align the children we are supporting with the activities taking place?” As an example, one of the teacher’s key activities was shared book interaction during circle time, which included transitioning and engaging the children in book reading. Consequently, her responses to the children were shaped by her goal of fostering successful interaction and participation within that activity. In this example, the primary goal is participation in the circle time activity, not ensuring “correct device use” or even “making sure everyone is quiet.”
For children who use AAC, one advantage of identifying participation in the activity as the goal is that it maximizes the options for how successful communication can be accomplished. Looking again at the opening vignette, the children are participating in the activity in a variety of ways, both verbally and nonverbally: for example, shouting out numbers, looking toward the teacher, and raising their hands. There is no one correct way to participate in the activity. Recognizing the diverse ways children can participate in the meaningful activities at hand (e.g., speech, eye gaze, gesture, device use) also affords us as caregivers and professionals flexibility in how we support our children in those activities, which takes us to the second principle.
“When the focus is on successful communication, the form is reduced to its proper place of being a means toward an end, rather than the end itself.”
Share Responsibility for Successful Interactions
Once the relevant activities are identified, then it becomes clearer how to support the child’s successful participation. Within the framework of communicative competence, caregivers, teachers, therapists, and peers are all seen as partners with the child, working together to accomplish activities and communicate messages. As partners, our actions should be guided by the question, “How do I collaborate with this child to support successful communication and participation?” Taking the opening vignette as an example, Sam selected the word “macaroni” on his device, but it did not appear to be interpreted as communicative by his teacher within the carpet time activities. Instead, she chose to ignore his production, even though when a different child later spoke out of turn she reminded that child to raise his hand. When applied to the opening vignette then, this principle of collaboration leads us to ask, “What does the child bring to the interaction? What do his or her communication partners bring, myself included? How can I help align what the child brings to the expectations of this community?”
A framework of communicative competence encourages us to assume relevant meaning from children’s actions and respond accordingly, something that parents are often willing to do even with the youngest of children (cf. Dunst & Lowe, 1986). Consider the infant who babbles “mama,” and the mother who responds excitedly to the possibility of being called by name. Her response helps create shared meaning and joint activity between the two of them. Because of the mother’s response, the interaction becomes a conversation! So too must children with AAC devices and their partners go about the collaborative work of interpreting communicative acts within the activity, whether the form of that communicative action is a spoken syllable or a selected symbol.
Recognizing the shared responsibility for successful interactions highlights the need for communication partners of children who use AAC to receive explicit time and training on the relevant device(s). Such training often takes the form of basic familiarity with the system, including how to program it, and how to support its use. Given enough familiarity with his device, the paraprofessional in the opening vignette could have supported Sam’s participation by helping him raise his hand and finding a relevant response to the rhyming task on his device. Providing relevant models of message-focused AAC use is commonly viewed as best practice within the recent AAC literature (Binger & Light, 2007; Harris & Reichle, 2004; Mirenda & Brown, 2009; Romski & Sevcik, 2003), often referred to as “aided language stimulation” or “augmented input.” A framework of communicative competence suggests that children need to be socialized into using and responding to AAC, and this requires opportunities for them to observe AAC being used to communicate. In sum, the process of supporting a child who uses AAC can look very different depending on the child and the context. For example, an experienced AAC user in a familiar context may primarily need a patient and engaged communicative partner, whereas a beginning communicator may also require multiple models of device use with verbal and physical prompting. However, the goal is always to provide whatever support is necessary to ensure successful communication and participation within the activity at hand.
Encourage Multiple Forms of Communication
For all of us, including children who use AAC, successful interactions are contingent on the ability of others to read, recognize, and value all forms of communicative actions. By communication form, we are referring to the multiple means and modalities through which we communicate (e.g., gestures, speech, facial expression, eye gaze, computerized devices). When the focus is on successful communication, the form is reduced to its proper place of being a means toward an end, rather than the end itself. Consequently, the associated question we should ask ourselves is “What resources are available to us in this moment to support communication?”
When applied to the rhyming activity in the opening vignette, this guiding question leads us to ask, “What communicative forms could Sam readily use to participate? What additional resources (e.g., pictures, objects) are available in the immediate environment? What forms of communication most readily meet the needs of this interaction?” By considering all available resources, it becomes clearer that Sam’s nonverbal behavior could be interpreted as communicative. For example, if he looks at or points toward the book, the teacher could acknowledge that behavior as a response by saying something like, “Sam, I saw you look toward the page. I wonder if you saw the word, day; Day rhymes with play!”
When valuing all forms of communication, the AAC system becomes a critical resource that should be available to the child throughout the day. Decisions to take a child’s device away, leave it behind, or turn down its volume are not made without recognition that communication resources are being restricted, often in very invasive ways. Limiting a child’s access to his or her device fails to value its critical role in facilitating social interaction, restricts his or her opportunities to learn how to manage his or her own “voice,” and runs the risk of limiting a child’s willingness to invest in learning to use the AAC system in the first place. We often find that the temptation to limit a child’s access to his or her own device becomes most pressing when the child is using it in a way that is disruptive, such as when Sam blurted out “macaroni” in the opening vignette. However, instead of immediately restricting a child’s access to the device, we would encourage caregivers and professionals to consider the device as one of many important communicative resources within the interaction and consequently turn to other options for shaping the interaction, such as reminding him that it is not time to talk about food (see revised vignette at the end of this article).
“In addition to drawing on shared histories, our current interactions should be paving the way for successful future interactions.”
In addition to implications for device accessibility, recognizing multiple forms of communication also diversifies opportunities for caregivers and professionals to support Sam’s participation in the group. Device use, though powerful in certain contexts, can be burdensome in others (Johnston, Reichle, & Evans, 2004; Sigafoos & Drasgow, 2001). Recognizing the legitimacy of multiple modalities allows the AAC user and his or her partners’ flexibility to use other communicative forms as the circumstance allows.
Recognizing AAC as one of many available resources also helps highlight the potential benefits of AAC for children who have already developed, or are expected to develop, spoken language. Specifically, there may be clear advantages in using AAC for children who have developed spoken language but have limitations in speech intelligibility, word finding, and/or fluency. When the multimodal nature of human communication is paired with evidence that AAC may enhance speech development (e.g., Romski et al., 2010), the population of children who may benefit from access to AAC widens substantially, and concerns that access to AAC will negatively affect speech diminish. In sum, requiring any individual to rely on one form of communication is “unnatural” and limits his or her ability to be a flexible and robust communicator. Consequently, children who use AAC and their communicative partners are encouraged to use all available resources to foster successful interaction and participation in the activity at hand, including their familiarity with one another.
Draw on Shared Histories and Build for Future Interactions
One of the key resources communication partners often have at their disposal, particularly caregivers, is familiarity and sustained relationship. In addition to being distributed across people and resources, communicative competence is also distributed across time. Present interactions are influenced by memories of the past and plans for the future, which can make familiarity a critical asset. As such, our interactions with children who use AAC should be shaped by the question, “How can we draw on familiarity to support current and future communication?”
For all of us, familiar communication partners are able to complete our sentences, anticipate our needs, and read our seemingly idiosyncratic behavior. Such familiarity should be viewed as a resource to draw upon within social interactions, rather than a form of support to extinguish. Applying the importance of repeated interactions to the opening vignette leads us to ask, “What do we know about Sam that can help us interpret his behavior? How can we react to this situation to help support interactions in the future?” For example, when Sam selected the message “macaroni” in the opening vignette, a familiar partner might know that this is the time of day during which Sam tends to get hungry, and macaroni is one of his favorite foods. Such familiarity should be used to shape the interaction. Perhaps the teacher or paraprofessional might respond by saying, “Sam, I know you’re getting hungry. Only thirty more minutes until lunch.” Or perhaps the class knows that Sam tends to be a prankster. In such a case, the teacher or paraprofessional might respond by saying, “Sam, it’s not time to joke. We can joke during recess.”
In addition to drawing on shared histories, our current interactions should be paving the way for successful future interactions. Again turning to the opening vignette, the paraprofessional’s and teacher’s responses to Sam’s production of macaroni may have minimized the present disruption, but it did not appear to pave the way for more positive future interactions. For example, by ignoring his production (particularly when she did not ignore other children’s disruptions), the teacher may have inadvertently communicated that Sam’s actions do not matter, are not meaningful, or cannot be helped. Along the same lines, by controlling the device’s volume herself, the paraprofessional may be communicating a similar negative message, as well as missing an opportunity to teach Sam control over his own “voice.” In contrast, by reminding Sam that it is time to be quiet and helping him learn how to adjust the volume himself, the paraprofessional and teacher are acknowledging his communicative competence and shaping future interactions to be more successful. In conjunction, if the production of macaroni was considered an act of playfulness, one could build on this social strength by adding goofy sound effects and explicit jokes to Sam’s AAC messages, or perhaps by returning to the topic of macaroni during lunchtime when joking is more consistent with the activity. Realizing that our current interactions are learning opportunities for everyone involved challenges us to make more intentional and proactive choices to shape future patterns of interaction and to work toward building positive relationships.
In closing, we have revised the opening vignette to be more inline with a framework of communicative competence, including all four related principles. Related revisions are underlined for quick identification. As it did for us, we hope this illustration and the associated four principles serve as a means to encourage caregivers and professionals to reflect on their interactions with children who use AAC so that we can all work together to achieve the ultimate prize: successful communication.
Springtime sunlight spills onto a sea of 18 preschool children gathering around their teacher for circle time. A small storm of laughter, squeals, and child-sized limbs swirls on the light blue rectangular rug. A couple of children situate themselves along the perimeter, one of whom, Sam, sits in a blue cube chair
“All eyes on me,” directs their captain, as she points and begins to count by twos the pairs of eyes that linger in her direction. “Two, four, six, eight . . . ”
Many children shout out numbers as they redirect their attention, a glint of hope for teacher recognition in their eyes.
The emerging quiet is broken by an electronic tenor, “macaroni,” radiating from Sam’s device; a grin spreads across his face.
Laughter erupts from the children. “He said macaroni!” one classmate narrates.
The teacher flashes all the children a quick peek at the cover of “The Cat in the Hat” while explaining today’s group activity: finding words that rhyme. One child interrupts with a tale about his cat, to which the teacher reminds him with eye gaze and a finger to her lips that this is not the time for his story.
After reading the first page, the teacher elicits a prompt from the children, “What rhymes with play?” A few hands fly into the air, while one child blurts out a spoken response.
“Remember to raise your hand,” she reminds him. He immediately raises his hand, and she calls on him for response.
“House!” he offers with enthusiasm.
“House . . . play,” the teacher muses aloud, “not quite. Who else has an idea?” Again hands fly into the air like seagulls at the surf.
Teacher and pupils, Sam included, fall into a rhythm as seemingly familiar as the tide.
Footnotes
Authors’ Note
You may reach Laura Segebart DeThorne by e-mail at