Clinical Effectiveness of AAC Intervention in Minimally Verbal Children With ASD: A Systematic Review

Background. Autism spectrum disorder is defined as neurodevelopmental disability by (DSM-5). One third to half of minimally verbal children could benefit from augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention. In children and adults with developmental disabilities, AAC enhances social interaction and daily routines. Objective. Clinical effectiveness of AAC interventions is being studied in improving outcome variables like social communication, interaction, speech production behavior and expression and their implementation in clinical practice for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Method. We searched electronic databases PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus from inception to January 2022. Randomized controlled trials with multiple baselines and multiple probe designs were selected for this review. Results. Four hundred sixty-eight articles retrieved with recruitment criteria, eight studies selected, three with multiple baseline designs, two with multiple probe designs, one with both and two randomized controlled trials (RCT) selected. Tau-U analysis and improvement rate difference (IRD) were used for analyzing the data, ranging from 0.80 to 1.00 for single-case experimental design and 0.90 to 0.95 for RCTs. Conclusions. AAC aids are effective tools for increasing communication in ASD children, but high-tech aids were more effective in increasing social communication, interaction, and speech production than low technology. Children also prefer high tech.