Implementation and Intervention Practices to Facilitate Communication Skills for a Child With Complex Communication Needs

Abstract

For children with complex communication needs (CCN), augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices offer a means to communicate and participate in daily activities. Effective implementation and intervention practices are needed for supporting teaching teams working with children with CCN to improve child use of AAC. The purpose of this article is to describe two studies examining these issues. Study 1 examined the effects of a behavior skills training (BST) approach to professional development to support a classroom teaching team in the implementation of a behavior support plan for a child with CCN; Study 2 evaluated the effects of a single behavior (adult modeling) on AAC use. Results indicated teachers increased their fidelity with training and coaching, but not with training alone. Further, unprompted use of the AAC device occurred more frequently when an adult modeled use of the device.