AAC
LANGUAGE SAMPLING YIELDS THE BEST RESULTS
Presenter(s)
Barry Romich, P.E.
AAC Institute
Telephone: (330) 262-1984 x211
Fax: (330) 263-4829
Email: bromich@aacinstitute.org
Presenter
Katya Hill, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Communication Science and Disorders
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Forbes Tower
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 16444-0001
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Telephone: (412) 383-6564
khill@shrs.pitt.edu
The purposes of this presentation are 1) to
raise awareness of the availability of new methods and tools for supporting AAC
evidence-based practice and 2) to demonstrate the practicality of using these
resources in routine clinical practice.
For children and adults who use AAC, their life
experience is and will be a function of their ability to communicate.
People who use AAC tell us that the two most important desires in their
use of AAC are 1) saying exactly what they want to say and 2) saying it as fast
as they can. The AAC service delivery process must honor these values.
The best results in AAC are obtained through
evidence-based practice (EBP) and this is the expected method of service
delivery today. (ASHA 2001) The components of EBP are 1) the
knowledge and skills of the service provider, 2) external evidence, and 3)
personal evidence. Knowledge and skills come from pre-service and
in-service education as well as personal experience. Attending
conferences such as this one can be an exceptional way to advance knowledge and
skills.
External evidence is comprised of research
reports, case studies, and even informal anecdotal evidence. However,
evidence can be conflicting and thus sometimes needs to be compared.
Judgments must be made regarding the reliability, validity, relevance,
age, and other characteristics of evidence. A free and easy to use source
of evidence is the web site of the AAC Institute, a not-for-profit charitable
organization dedicated to the most effective communication for people who use
AAC. At the site, evidence is divided into five levels and into
categories according to single subject vs. group research. The further
distinction is made between studies in which subjects were actual users of AAC
and those studies in which the subjects pretended to use AAC for the study.
External evidence helps establish the vision for the future that one
needs to have when providing services.
This presentation is focused on the remaining
component of EBP, personal evidence. The foundation of personal evidence
in AAC is the language sample. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) know
that the collection and analysis of language samples lead to the most effective
therapy (Hill & Romich, 1999). However, until recently only about ten
percent of SLPs actually did this. Prior to the development of new
methods and tools, language sample collection and analysis was a
labor-intensive activity and rarely done. Expectations have changed.
Today language samples can be collected
efficiently and reliably from people who use AAC. Language activity
monitoring (LAM) or an alternative logfile function is a feature in a growing
number of AAC devices (Hill & Romich, 2001). When the feature is
turned on, the AAC device records the content and time of each language
activity that is generated. For older devices that do not have this
feature built in, PC software allows a computer or PocketPC to be the language
activity monitor. Regular periodic collection of language samples using
automated methods provides information not otherwise available to the SLP
providing AAC services. (Van Tatenhove, 2005)
This presentation includes a demonstration in
which a person using AAC generates a language sample. The sample will be
both recorded in the AAC device and recorded in the PC that is connected to the
data projector. The audience will be the communication partner and participants
will be able to watch the language sample collection appear on the screen.
Various language
sampling protocols can used. Common protocols are conversation,
interview, picture description, story retelling, and other activities that
might be occurring in therapy. These are all controlled environment
protocols. Natural environment language sampling also can be done and may
offer a better representation of actual communication performance in the
classroom or community.
After the language sample is collected, it can
be analyzed. The AAC Performance Report is a set of seventeen
quantitative summary measures of communication performance. Performance
Report Tool (Pert) is software that facilitates the generation of this report.
(Romich, et.al., 2003) In this
presentation, the collected language sample will be analyzed using PeRT and
session participants will see the ease and speed of performing this analysis.
Finally, the quantitative summary measures will
be reviewed and discussion will focus on how to use the measures to guide AAC
therapy and measure outcomes as a component of evidence-based practice (Hill,
2004).
References
American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association (ASHA). (2001). Scope of Practice.
Hill, K. (2004). AAC evidence-based
practice and language activity monitoring. Topics in Language Disorders:
Language and Augmented Communication, 24, 18-30.
Hill, K., & Romich B. (1999).
AAC language activity monitoring and analysis for clinical
intervention and research outcomes. In Proceedings of
the C-SUN Conference.
Hill, K., & Romich, B. (2001).
A Language Activity Monitor to support AAC evidence-based practice.
Assistive Technology, 13, 12-22.
Romich, B., Hill, K., Seagull, A., Ahmad,
N., Strecker, J., & Gotla, K (2003).
AAC performance report tool. In
Proceedings of the RESNA 2001 Annual Conference [CD-ROM].
Van Tatenhove, G. (2005). Using Objective
Data to Transition Across AAC Systems. Presentation at AAC Institute Third Annual International Symposium
on AAC Evidence-Based Practice.
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