At the 2018 PSHA Convention, Curtin et al presented their findings on the use of grid-based AAC apps to promote literacy in a child with ASD.
Improving Literacy Outcomes for Individuals with Complex Communication Needs
Literacy skills are tremendously important in today’s society; they provide a means to enhance education, improve employment opportunities, develop social relationships, access the Internet, foster personal expression, and provide enjoyable leisure activities. Literacy skills are even more important for individuals who have complex communication needs and have limited speech. Being able to read and write allow individuals who require AAC a means to communicate anything they want. Unfortunately most of literacy curricula require students to provide oral responses; these programs are not appropriate for individuals with autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other special needs who have limited speech. There is an urgent need to develop effective, research-based interventions to teach literacy skills to individuals with complex communication needs.
At Penn State, we have been investigating ways to effectively teach literacy skills to individuals with complex communication needs.
There is on-going, long-term work regarding literacy intervention based on the recommendations of the National Reading Panel. Accordingly, it targets a wide range of skills including phonological awareness, letter sound correspondences, decoding, sight word recognition, shared reading, and reading comprehension skills as well as spelling and writing skills. The intervention applies principles of effective instruction and provides numerous opportunities for students to practice skills within meaningful literacy activities that have been individualized to be accessible for the learner’s means of understanding and expressing him or herself. To date, children with autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, developmental apraxia and multiple disabilities have benefited tremendously from the literacy intervention, including children ages 3-16 years of age. There are multiple free web resources available which provide comprehensive overviews of this approach.
Effects of Literacy Interventions on Single-Word Reading for Individuals Who Use AAC: A Systematic Review
At the 2017 ASHA Conference, Kelsey Mandak presented on the effects of single-word literacy interventions for individuals who use AAC.
Provision of Adapted Literacy Instruction by SLPS
Jess Caron, Nora Eskin and colleagues described the experiences of SLPs in providing literacy instruction to children who use AAC at ASHA 2017
Literacy instruction for individuals with CCN: Perspectives of school-based SLPs — Presentation
SLPs have specialized knowledge that can be used to provide the help and adaptations for students with CCN in order to build vital language, communication, and literacy skills and support the maximization of literacy and communication outcomes.
Grid displays to literacy: Effect of dynamic text on word reading for individuals with ASD — Presentation
Literacy skills are essential to positive outcomes in education, employment, participation and community living. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of app features grounded in the state of the science in visual cognitive processing, literacy instruction, and instructional design (Light et al., 2014), as a component in the bridge from picture-based AAC systems to literacy.