Gloria Soto

• San Francisco State University

When access to natural speech is limited or challenging, as is the case for people with complex communication needs, self-created digital film can be practical to use as one of the resources within a multimodal conversation about a personal experience. The detailed and contextual information such audiovisual media offers with today’s available tech...

The relationship between children and their caregivers is essential for the development of social, emotional, cognitive, and linguistic skills. This is especially critical for children with complex communication needs who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), as parents play a crucial role in supporting AAC integration within the ho...

Sharing personal stories with others is essential to human interaction and language development. To communicate, individuals use a variety of semiotic resources, including images, symbols, and written and spoken language. These modes are deployed in the co-construction of a daily face-to-face conversation. A self-created film can serve as a valuabl...

Purpose Caregivers play a critical role in their children's development and serve as their primary communication partners. Family interactions provide the most naturally occurring opportunities for children with complex communication needs to learn language in the context of family routines. A growing body of research suggests that caregivers can e...

The relationships between the use of nouns and verbs, and other word classes have been well established in the typical language development literature. However, questions remain as to whether the same relationships are seen in the language use of individuals who use graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The aim of t...

The selection of appropriate vocabulary is a crucial and challenging aspect of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention. Core vocabulary lists are frequently used to support vocabulary selection for children who require AAC. A vocabulary domain that has garnered limited attention within the AAC literature is relational basic co...

Purpose Project Building Bridges was funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs to address the shortage of speech-language pathologists qualified to serve students with complex communication needs who benefit from augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and are culturally and linguistically diverse. The...

Purpose Parent engagement and involvement is essential for the successful implementation of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems in the home. The purpose of the current study is to gain a deeper understanding of caregivers' experiences with AAC systems and their collaboration with school professionals during the implementation o...

Core vocabulary lists and vocabulary inventories vary according to language. Lists from one language cannot and should not be assumed to be translatable, as words represent language-specific concepts and grammar. In this manuscript, we (a) present the results of a vocabulary overlap analysis between different published core vocabulary lists in Engl...

Purpose: The development of culturally and linguistically appropriate resources to support communication interventions for underserved communities is an urgent necessity. The purpose of the study was to obtain stakeholder feedback on vocabulary items from a Sepedi core vocabulary list developed as a resource for vocabulary selection for augmentati...

The present study investigated the relationship between lexicon and grammar in individuals who use graphic symbol-based aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Data came from 60 transcripts of generalization sessions that were part of two previous intervention studies, aimed at improving the expressive vocabulary and grammar of 12 c...

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of eight Latina mothers on early augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) services for their young children, including their decision-making process, and knowledge of AAC. The ultimate goal is to help professionals develop culturally responsive and family-centered education an...

Purpose The purpose of this project was to examine the perspectives, practices, and confidence of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) regarding service provision for emergent bilinguals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) through a nationwide survey. Method Licensed SLPs (N = 179) completed an online survey, which included Lik...

Purpose The purpose of this project was to examine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on speech-language pathologist (SLP) service provision for emergent bilinguals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). One prominent issue in AAC service delivery is the efficacy and feasibility of providing AAC services via telepractice. The CO...

Mind understanding allows for the adaptation of expressive language to a listener and is a core element when communicating new information to a communication partner. There is limited knowledge about the relationship between aided language and mind understanding. This study investigates this relationship using a communication task. The participants...

Multilingual individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) often shift between language environments and speakers of different languages; thus, code-switching (or alternating between languages or dialects within or across contexts) becomes necessary for effective communication. Recently, AAC product developers have responded...

Purpose The purpose of this tutorial is to describe a tool and a procedure to support the collection and qualitative manual analysis of aided language samples in Spanish. Method The Protocol for the Analysis of Aided Language Samples in Spanish (PAALSS) was developed from the present knowledge of Spanish language acquisition, and established proce...

Conversational repair has been found to play a fundamental role in the acquisition of language. This paper describes existing research on conversational repair and its relationship to language learning, whether a first language or a second language, as well as its relevance to augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). A case is made for inc...

For children with complex communication needs in the early stages of language development, access to appropriate vocabulary provides a means for social interaction and participation, and the foundation for the acquisition of grammar and other language related skills. While numerous resources are available to support decision making for speakers of...

Purpose: to discuss the implementation and use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) among children and adolescents, within the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) field. / Methods: an in...

Purpose: to discuss the implementation and use of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) and International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Children and Youth Version (ICF-CY) among children and adolescents, within the Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) field. Methods: an int...

The present study investigated the effects of different types of recasts and prompts on the rate of repair and spontaneous use of novel vocabulary by eight children with severe motor speech disabilities who used speech-generating technologies to communicate. Data came from 60 transcripts of clinical sessions that were part of a conversation-based i...

The present study investigated the effects of different types of recasts and prompts on the rate of repair and spontaneous use of novel vocabulary by eight children with severe motor speech disabilities who used speech-generating technologies to communicate. Data came from 60 transcripts of clinical sessions that were part of a conversation-based i...

The present study investigated the effects of different types of recasts and prompts on the rate of repair and spontaneous use of novel vocabulary by eight children with severe motor speech disabilities who used speech-generating technologies to communicate. Data came from 60 transcripts of clinical sessions that were part of a conversation-based i...

This study aimed to detect patterns in clause construction structural changes produced by four participants aged 9;5–13;7 (years;months) with motor speech disorders who used speech-generating devices. Sequences of adult–child interactions, drawn from the data of a larger study focused on enhancing vocabulary and grammar skills, were examined. This...

Purpose Project Building Bridges is a federally sponsored program that prepares speech-language pathology graduate students to provide culturally and linguistically responsive services to school-age children with complex communication needs from diverse backgrounds. Project scholars receive evidence-based training in augmentative and alternative co...

This paper reports on the outcomes of a secondary analysis of four adult–child corpora databases collected as part of another study (Soto & Clarke, 2017) on how the types and frequency of the adults’ scaffolding strategies changed during conversation with school-aged children with motor speech disorders who use speech-generating devices at the time...

The use of early verbal categories, their event types, and the emergence of verbal inflections (-ing, -s, and -ed) were analyzed in data from four participants with motor speech disorders aged 9;5–13;9 (years;months) who used speech-generating devices to converse with a familiar adult. The study was conducted through a secondary analysis of a corpu...

This study evaluated the effects of a conversation-based intervention on the use of verbs, personal pronouns, bound morphemes and spontaneous clauses in adolescents with cerebral palsy who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Four teenage girls aged from 14 to 18 years participated in the study. After a baseline period, a conversat...

Purpose This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of a conversation-based intervention on the expressive vocabulary and grammatical skills of children with severe motor speech disorders and expressive language delay who use augmentative and alternative communication. Method Eight children aged from 8 to 13 years participated in the study. A...

Children with complex communication needs often rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to communicate. Use of AAC can result in messages with limited syntax and morphology that are difficult for communication partners to understand. This case study examines the linguistic productions of a child who uses high-tech AAC, with emergin...

For children with typical development, language is learned through everyday discursive interaction. Adults mediate child participation in such interactions through the deployment of a range of co-constructive strategies, including repeating, questioning, prompting, expanding, and reformulating the child’s utterances. Adult reformulations of child u...

This paper exemplifies the process we used to customize the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT) software to monitor a wide range of language measures for children who use high-tech speech-generating devices (SGDs) when taking into consideration two main characteristics of aided communication: multimodality and co-constructed interact...

One of the main challenges for SLPs is the ongoing evaluation of the language development of children who use AAC systems. This presentation will demonstrate the process of using and modifying SALT software to monitor a wide range of language measures for children who use AAC.

This study examines transcript data from Year 3 of an ongoing research project to support inquiry into language use and social identity for an adolescent with severe disabilities of speech. Using the theoretical framework developed within the fields of applied linguistics and linguistic anthropology, this detailed analysis of interactions between c...

Abstract This study analyzes the core vocabulary used by typically developing school-aged English-speaking children in the United States while participating in a variety of school activities. The language of typically developing children, some of whom spoke English as a second language was recorded, transcribed and analyzed to identify the most fre...

Toddlers benefiting from augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) often demonstrate delayed expressive vocabulary. However, a paucity of AAC intervention research exists for children under the age of 3. There have also been few AAC studies comparing language intervention techniques across children of any age. This study investigated two int...

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) service providers are increasingly serving a significant number of clients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. In this paper, we discuss general considerations and future research needs relevant to the use of AAC strategies and techniques with bilingual children, specifically, iss...

Persons with severe speech impairments frequently communicate via non-speech means, such as speech-generating devices (SGDs). In studies of people without disabilities, use of non-speech responses has activated non-phonological modalities for short-term word storage. In the current study, short-term word storage was evaluated in 23 pre-trained adul...

This article focuses on culturally responsive AAC practice. Including parents in the process is essential to ensure that children with significant communication impairments receive the most appropriate communication tool and the most effective intervention strategies. Often, the roles expected or demanded from parents may conflict with the values,...

Federal legislation has increasingly mandated that students with disabilities have access to the general education curriculum. The general education curriculum should be the primary content and context of the education and therapeutic intervention for students who use AAC. Special educators, including speech and language pathologists, need to encap...

Adult co-construction with children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has been found to facilitate child communicative competence in general, but few studies have examined adult co-construction during the telling of personal narratives. This study explored the use of adult co-constructive strategies during personal storytelli...

This paper explores the application of ordered probit modeling, an econometric technique commonly used for the analysis of rating data in situations when respondents are asked to rate items (e.g., an object, service, or product), one at a time. To demonstrate the application of this methodology, an existing data set, originally collected to measure...

This article highlights evidence supporting the efficacy of adult language modeling and child imitation, including use of aided AAC modeling, during language intervention with young children demonstrating complex communication needs. First, four evidence-based language intervention approaches that incorporate adult language modeling and child imita...

Unlabelled: Children who use augmentative and alternative communication have been found to experience significant difficulties in the production of fictional and personal narratives. The important role of personal narratives in establishing personal and social identity has received substantial attention in developmental psychology but little atten...

Children who have poor expressive vocabularies are at risk of further language delays and reading comprehension difficulties, which will significantly impact their educational achievement. The role of shared book reading in supporting vocabulary growth continues to receive empirical attention in the field of communication disorders. This single-sub...

Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) have been found to experience difficulties in the elicited generation of both personal and fictional narratives. The purpose of this single case study was to evaluate the effects of a multifaceted intervention program designed to support the development of autonomous narrative skills...

Narrative abilities have been linked to literacy, communicative competence and development of identity. Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) may be at risk for difficulties in the development of narrative skills due to differences in their language learning opportunities and limitations of their AAC systems. The structu...

Narrative abilities have been identified as a link to successful school achievement and, in particular, to the acquisition of literacy. Children who use AAC may be at risk of impaired narrative facility due to the differences in their language learning experiences, limitation of their AAC systems, and limitations from constrained access to physical...

Unlabelled: The ability to narrate a story is fundamental to the development of overall communicative competence and involves the coordination of a variety of knowledge structures and linguistic abilities. In this study, the narrative discourse abilities of four children who use AAC are described in the context of five tasks designed to elicit a s...

This study reports descriptive findings regarding the scaffolding strategies used by an experienced practitioner during a shared book reading session with a student who uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Specific scaffolding strategies are described and, in addition, the level of semantic complexity targeted by the practitioner...

Ethnographic methodologies were used to describe and interpret the experiences of four Mexican-American families of individuals with complex communication needs regarding the impact of using AAC devices. Findings suggest that the AAC devices were not perceived by family members to be useful for interactions with their children. Additionally, family...

Researchers in 2 studies investigated the effectiveness of a general education/special education collaborative teaming process in increasing the engagement, development, and learning of preschoolers with severe disabilities who were placed in general education early childhood programs that operated under a team-teaching model. The process included...

An overview of the challenges facing the Spanish Special Education system at the turn of the century is presented. Significant changes have occurred in Spain over the last two decades that have affected the landscape of Spanish public schools in an unprecedented way. First, since the late 1980s, students with a variety of disabilities have been att...

This study investigated the effectiveness of a general education/special education collab- orative teaming process on the academic and social participation of six students in general educa- tion classrooms. Three of the students experienced severe disabilities. The other three were considered academically at risk. Each student was supported by an e...

In this article, issues and concepts related to the study of production, comprehension, and acquisition of syntax and morphology by children who need augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems are reviewed. The use of graphic symbols when vocal speech is severely limited presents significant challenges to the typical process of langua...

This exploratory study describes the conversation patterns of three aided speakers and their communication partners and focuses on the question of whether patterns vary across different types of partners. The aided speakers were videotaped engaging in unstructured conversation with both a natural speaker and another aided speaker. Comparisons of co...

This study evaluated the effectiveness of the use of a team collaboration process to increase the academic achievement and social participation of three students with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) needs who were members of general education classrooms. Three educational teams, comprised of the general education teacher, inclusion...

This final report discusses the activities and outcomes of a 3-year federally funded project that investigated the effectiveness of a collaborative teaming process to increase the academic achievement and social participation of elementary students with augmentative and alternative (AAC) needs who were members of general education classrooms. The c...

Focus group research methodology was used to investigate educational team members' perceptions of critical issues regarding the inclusive education of students with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) needs. General education and inclusion support teachers, instructional assistants, parents, and speech-language pathologists participate...

The roles of school-based professionals serving students with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) needs are changing in light of the inclusion movement. Focus group research methodology was used to investigate professional skills regarded by educational team members as necessary to support students who used AAC in general education cla...

The purpose of this article is to examine the contributions made by the teacher efficacy literature to the study of teaching students with severe disabilities. The description and measurement of the self-efficacy construct are first explained, followed by a brief overview of problems in self-efficacy research. Findings on the relationship between p...

This preliminary study was designed to investigate the attitudes of special education teachers in a midwestern state toward the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems by students with severe communication impairments. A focus group of professionals working with AAC users was used to develop a survey instrument that was sent...

This paper presents the findings of a study that analyzed the morphosyntactic complexity of the language output of three congenitally physically disabled Spanish individuals who use Blissymbolics as their primary means of expression. Three methods were used to collect Blissymbol output by each individual over a 1-week period. All Blissymbol output...

Compared the effectiveness of 2 intervention approaches (behavior training strategies and cognitive process strategies) to teaching social skills to learners with moderate to severe mental retardation working in vocational settings by conducting a meta-analytical review of articles published between 1980 and 1993. The 7 studies that met criteria fo...

Investigated whether a person with profound intellectual disabilities could effectively learn specific requests using 2 different communication aids, and compared whether the participant showed a preference for one device over the other. This study attempted to determine whether the participant could functionally use different communication aids de...

This paper presents an overview of the changes occurring in special education in Spain by highlighting the historical, social, and legal aspects of the transition that has lead to the current integration process. The paper also includes a brief description of the mainstreaming efforts in the USA, and their social and legal foundations. Although the...