Language treatment approach for users of AAC: experimental single-subject investigation

This study sought to determine if a language intervention treatment program could promote the segmentation and combination of grammatical constituents in an individual who primarily communicated via single-symbol message strategies. A computerized adaptation of a reciprocal reading procedure was employed to highlight syntactic constituents through selective segmentation and promote their combination through conversational turn taking. To answer this question, evidence for a treatment effect was obtained using a multiple baseline across communicative contexts design. A 5-year-old child who primarily communicated via single-symbol message strategies was trained to segment syntactic constituents in two different discourse contexts (book reading and structured discourse). The data for this child indicated a positive effect of treatment in both discourse contexts, although the magnitude of the treatment effect was greater in the bookreading context than in the structured discourse context.