Abstract
Aided communicators often have an opportunity to express themselves with speech-generating devices (SGDs) that produce symbol by symbol (SBS) and/or pre-stored (PS) utterances. Studies on the usage of PS utterances report that these utterances affect conversations positively, but it appears that aided communicators and professionals may have divergent views on their benefits. The aim of this study is to analyse how school-aged aided communicators, their mothers, peers, and speech and language therapists (SLTs) co-construct the social actions of PS utterances during their everyday interactions. The theoretical framework of this study is conversation analysis. This approach to analysing the data enhances our understanding of the linguistic and temporal resources of PS utterances and how they are used to reinforce various rich social actions that promote the progress of aided conversations to resemble natural spoken conversations. The results of this study will help SLTs and teachers in their planning content for SGDs as well as in teaching, and guiding aided communicators and their partners to utilize PS utterances in combination with SBS utterances during their conversations.
Highlights
Speech-generating devices (SGDs) are tools which non-speaking people can use to compensate for their inability to produce oral speech
This section begins with a description of PS utterances, followed by our analysis of the excerpts to demonstrate how the participants used them in everyday interaction
The results of this study suggest that PS utterances offered other temporal resources in addition to the rapid expressions, such as a clear position in the sequence, properly timed transitions and phrases that perform the social action of furthering conversations
Summary
Speech-generating devices (SGDs) are tools which non-speaking people can use to compensate for their inability to produce oral speech. Children with complex communication needs are often introduced to devices which consist of only a few cells These may include separate symbols, for example, for choosing a snack or PS utterances such as those pertaining to the game ‘More bubbles’ or related to selecting an activity, such as ‘I like playing with animals.’. PS utterances are primarily used to recount the life events of the aided communicators, to discuss particular situations or topics, and to control the progress of conversations (Todman et al, 2008) During their school lessons, pupils may request a turn (‘I have something to say’), ask about their homework (‘What do we have for homework?’), or comment on a story (‘That’s spooky’)
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