Effects of Interventions That Include Aided Augmentative and Alternative Communication Input on the Communication of Individuals With Complex Communication Needs: A Meta-Analysis
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
O'Neill, T., Light, J., et al. (2018).
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(7), 1743-1765.
This meta-analysis investigates the effects of aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions on the communication skills of individuals with developmental disabilities and complex communication needs.
Penn State AAC Leadership Project; Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Through May 2017
Experimental designs; quasi-experimental designs; single-case experimental designs
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For individuals with developmental disabilities using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), "providing aided input simultaneously with speech resulted in a large effect size (.77), whereas providing aided input in an asynchronous manner resulted in a very large effect size (.93). Interventions including one or more components in addition to aided AAC input had a very large effect size (.84), whereas interventions that only included aided AAC input had a large effect size (.77)" on their communication outcomes (p. 1757).
Aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) input interventions demonstrated a very large overall effect (ES = 0.83; SD = 0.24) on the communication outcomes of individuals with developmental disabilities. The studies did not provide enough data to calculate effect sizes related to maintenance or generalization of AAC use on communication abilities. For each language domain,
<ul>
<li>"outcomes related to expression resulted in a very large effect size (.84);</li>
<li>outcomes related to comprehension resulted in a large effect size (.76)" (p. 1757); and</li>
<li>outcomes for pragmatics, semantics, and morphosyntax resulted in large to very large effect sizes (range = .76–.93). </li>
</ul>
For the communication outcomes of individuals with developmental disabilities using augmentative and alternative communication, "the amount of time spent in intervention was associated with very large effects for the following durations: 1 hr or less, and 1–2 and 2–5 hr (range = .84–.91). A moderate effect (.54) resulted from cases in which more than 5 hr was spent in intervention" (p. 1757).
"With regard to partner instruction, interventions that included partner instruction had a very large effect size (.88), whereas interventions that did not include partner instruction had a large effect size (.78)" on the communication outcomes of individuals with developmental disabilities (p. 1757).
For individuals with developmental disabilities, "interventions that investigated aided [augmentative and alternative communication] AAC input implemented by partners who were researchers, parents, peers, paraprofessionals, or speech-language pathologists all resulted in very large effect sizes (range = .84–.97). A moderate effect size (.52) resulted for interventions that included multiple communication partners" (p. 1757).
"Outcomes yielded a very large effect size for interventions using [speech generating devices] SGDs (.88) and a large effect size for interventions using non-SGDs (.79)" (p. 1757) in the communication outcomes of individuals with developmental disabilities.
For individuals with developmental disabilities using augmentative and alternative communication, "interventions that included key word aided input or full-phase aided input composed of multiple aided symbols resulted in very large effect sizes (.84–.91), whereas full-phrase input associated with a single symbol resulted in a large effect size (.72)" in their communication outcomes (p. 1757).
