Kerstin Tönsing

• PhD AAC
• Professor (Associate) at University of Pretoria

Most individuals with disabilities live in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) where healthcare services such as speech-language therapy are limited. The challenge of accessing services was compounded by the COVID-19 global pandemic, leaving many people who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) vulnerable. The aim of this study w...

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can be used effectively by persons with speech or speech-related disabilities to accomplish a variety of communicative functions. However, the majority of AAC interventions reported in the literature focused on requesting. While it is important to initially teach requesting skills, commenting should...

This qualitative study aimed to describe speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') perspectives on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) use for people with post-stroke aphasia focusing on: (a) current AAC practice, (b) factors that influence the use of AAC, and (c) the success and relevance of AAC interventions. Semi-structured interviews t...

Background Over 8 million children with disabilities live in Africa and are candidates for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), yet formal training for team members, such as speech–language therapists and special education teachers, is extremely limited. Only one university on the continent provides postgraduate degrees in AAC, and oth...

Globally, there is an increasing focus on interventions that are culturally relevant for children and families from diverse cultural, racial, and ethnic groups. We conducted a scoping review to evaluate what populations have been included in the caregiver research related to established naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions for childr...

In South Africa, many children with extensive support needs-including children who require AAC-are accommodated in care centers rather than the public schooling system. Caregivers employed at these centers need training in order to support children's communication using augmentative and alternative methods. A total of 29 center-based caregivers too...

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...

Background An individual's ability to make autonomous decisions is fundamental to self‐determination. The presence of neurological pathology, for example, aphasia, and its associated difficulties with language and/or cognition, may affect an individual's capacity to make decisions, or their ability to reveal their capacity to make decisions. Decisi...

Background: Attending school provides children with opportunities to socialize and form friendships and develop and learn new skills – ultimately impacting on adulthood as it prepares one for life in the workplace. Active participation in the classroom is a prerequisite for learning to take place, but if a child has a significant communication disa...

Purpose This is the first of two papers summarizing studies reporting on the design of electronic graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems, to determine the state of the field. The aim of this paper was to provide an overview of the general characteristics of the studies and to describe the features of the syste...

Purpose: This is the second of two papers summarizing studies reporting on the design of electronic graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems. The aim of this paper was to describe the design approaches used and to determine to what extent the principles of human-centred design (HCD) were reflected in the design...

Background: Participation in society is the cornerstone to living a meaningful, connected, and healthy life. Persons with complex communication needs, however, often have restricted opportunities to participate in everyday contexts and situations. Reasons for this include societal attitudinal barriers, as well as limited knowledge and skills about...

Purpose: The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted inequities faced by persons with complex communication needs (CCN) in accessing health information and education. This study reports on the perspectives of South African rehabilitation professionals regarding access to health information and education for youth with CCN. Materials and metho...

Purpose: Limited research exists to guide augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention for children from multilingual backgrounds. When a graphic symbol-based AAC system is provided to children, they need to learn the meaning of the graphic symbols. This study determined the effect of teaching the association between a graphic symb...

Introduction Involving youth with severe communication disabilities in health research is foregrounded in a perspective of rights and participation. Researchers aligned with a participatory and inclusive research agenda recommend that involving youth in health research should be a deliberate and well‐planned process. However, limited examples exist...

Purpose Various factors influence the selection of assistive technology for young children within a context with limited resources, such as South Africa. Rehabilitation professionals are required to weigh up different factors as part of their professional reasoning process when making assistive technology (AT) selections. Insight into the perceived...

Purpose: In order to provide equitable communication intervention and support services to clients from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, the development of language-specific resources for assessment and intervention is needed. The purpose of the study was to develop a core vocabulary list based on language samples from Sepedi-speaking c...

Police officers increasingly come into contact with persons with various disabilities in their line of duty. This study aimed to determine police officers’ knowledge, experience, and perceived competence in interacting with persons with disabilities by using questionnaires (n = 98). Participants spanned different genders, age groups, educational le...

Although the literature suggests that multilingual augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions hold benefits for children from multilingual backgrounds, there is little guidance on how such interventions can be implemented. While various barriers to this process have been noted, language ideology has not received much attention i...

Background: Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can enable individuals with little or no functional speech to communicate functionally in a variety of communication contexts. AAC systems for individuals who are not (yet) fully literate often require that the vocabulary for the system be preselected. By including the most commonly- and...

Background: Friendship is a crucial relationship for young adults with disabilities as it offers practical support and enjoyment, and it is essential to well-being and health. The present study examined the friendships of young adults with physical disabilities whose challenges with natural speech necessitate the use of augmentative and alternative...

Vocabulary selection is an important aspect to consider when designing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems for children who have not yet developed conventional literacy skills. AAC team members have used core vocabulary lists representing words most commonly and frequently used by speakers of a natural language) as a resource t...

This presentation will report on a series of South African studies aimed at laying foundations for the design of augmentative and alternative communication systems that give access to non-English and multiple languages. DOI 10.3233/TAD-190011

Background: Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can assist persons with complex communication needs to communicate competently with a variety of communication partners in a variety of contexts. However, AAC systems and intervention often do not take multilingual aspects into consideration. Objective: This small-scale exploratory study...

Purpose The purpose of this study is (a) to examine the applicability of a culturally and linguistically adapted measure to assess the receptive and expressive language skills of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in South Africa and then (b) to explore the contributions of 2 additional language measures. Method In Part 1, 100 child...

Background: In South Africa, many persons in need of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) come from multilingual backgrounds. There is as yet a limited evidence base (locally and internationally) for the provision of AAC services to multilingual populations. The perspectives of service providers can assist in gaining an understanding o...

Background South African speech-language therapists have identified the need for culturally valid and sensitive assessment tools that can accommodate multiple languages and cover a reasonable age range. The Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) extend from birth to 68 months, contain five separate subscales including receptive language, expressive...

The 4-A Framework suggests that all inclusive education systems must be available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. South Africa is committed to establishing an inclusive education system that does not exclude students with disabilities. South African university disability policies translate the imperatives of the United Nations Convention on...

Method: Two asynchronous online focus groups were conducted with 16 rehabilitation professionals to identify the factors they perceived to influence the selection and provision of assistive technology to young children within the South African context. Data analysis: A process of deductive thematic analysis was followed by inductive analysis of...

Speech-language therapists (SLTs) have direct contact with a wide variety of individuals who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and they are therefore considered to have a primary role in the assessment, selection, and implementation of AAC symbols, techniques, aids, and strategies. Limited information is available with regard...

Persons with certain disabilities face barriers to information access and interpersonal communication. Assistive technologies provide workaround solutions to these problems. Augmentative and alternative communication systems aid the person with little or no functional speech to speak out loud. Screen readers and accessible e-books allow a print-dis...

Background: The use of Assistive Technology (AT) by children with disabilities has been associated with significant development and improvement in outcomes within all spheres of life. However, AT is often underutilized. Appropriate selection of AT by rehabilitation professionals could improve the satisfaction of the user and their family with thei...

Vocabulary selection for graphic symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication systems is important to enable persons with significant communication difficulties to express a variety of communication functions to indicate needs and wants, to develop social closeness, and to fulfill social etiquette. For persons who experience pain, abuse,...

This paper presents a systematic research review regarding disability sensitivity training programmes provided to police officers. Thirteen databases between 1980 and 2015 were searched. After records were screened, 19 full-text studies were assessed. Three studies met the eligibility criteria. Quality appraisal was undertaken using the McMaster to...

Persons with severe communication disabilities in South Africa experience many barriers to their inclusion in society. These barriers occur across contexts and within all levels of the individual’s family and community life. Congruent with the current models of disability, effective and sustainable communication intervention requires a broad system...

Objectives: Client-centred rehabilitation implies that persons with aphasia and their significant others are actively involved in all decisions regarding rehabilitation, including the setting of rehabilitation priorities and goals. This study aimed to describe and compare the perspectives of adults with aphasia, their significant others and their...

Although the provision of assistive technology for students with disabilities has been mandated in South African education policy documents, limited data are available on the implementation of aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) in classrooms. This pilot investigation used a concurrent mixed-methods survey design to determine the...

Children who use AAC have been found to have difficulty acquiring literacy skills and those that do develop literacy skills often lag behind their peers. These deficits in literacy skills are often so severe that they are still evident in adulthood. The importance of literacy cannot be underestimated for people who use AAC. Literacy skills enable a...

Children with significant communication difficulties who experience pain need appropriate means to communicate their pain in order to receive appropriate treatment. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies could be used to enable children to self-report pain. The aim of this research study was to identify the common vocabulary ch...

The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy with which the use of a speech generating device (Apple iPadTM with GoTalk NowTM application) versus a communication board promoted the production of two-symbols combinations (agent-action and attribute-entity combinations) by children limited speech within a shared story reading context. Four child...

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of an intervention strategy on the production of graphic symbol combinations in children with limited speech. Four children between the ages of 6;5 and 10;8 (years;months) with limited speech participated in the study. A single-subject, multiple probe design across three different types of semantic...

Purpose: Based on the bioecological model by Bronfenbrenner, this paper will provide a broad perspective on factors that need to be taken into account in order to facilitate communication and participation in preliterate children making use of electronic Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) systems accessed through eye gaze. Method:...

Background: Due to the challenges presented by the complex nature of aphasia, the familiar communication partners of these individuals often act as informants in the process of selecting topics for inclusion in an AAC system. However, informant input is not always accurate, and hence the active involvement of adults with aphasia in the preselection...

Research Findings: Teaching thinking skills is an important goal of formal primary and secondary education. Storybook reading is a well-established routine in the first few school years. Thinking skills can easily be fostered during these potentially language-rich interactions, making storybook reading a powerful tool for preparing young children f...

This chapter deals with communication, language, and literacy learning in children with developmental disabilities by integrating two perspectives, firstly that of information processing and the impact of specific impairments on information processing and interpretation of symbols used in interaction and, secondly, the role of sociocultural factors...

The aim of the study was to analyze topics that occur in social conversations between employees in a University employment context. Samples of social conversation of 6 participants without disabilities were recorded on 9 days. The samples were analyzed for topics referenced under the three referential frames of time, person, and content. Results in...

This study aimed at examining the influences of the parameters of the narrative task (administered to the pre-schooler) on narrative structure. Seventeen pre-school children were selected as subjects. Five narrative tasks were administered to each subject. The narratives were analysed for length and structure. Mainly two factors were found to influ...

Thesis (M.(Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2004. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-67).