Teaching Preschoolers With Down Syndrome Using Augmentative and Alternative Communication Modeling During Small Group...

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Speech-Language Pathology
• Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC)

Background:

• Children with Down syndrome (DS) often experience communication challenges.
• Dialogic reading is a valuable intervention for early language development.
• Aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) modeling can support communication skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of AAC-MOD on communication skills in young children with DS.
• To assess AAC-MOD's effectiveness during small group dialogic reading in inclusive settings.

Main Methods:

• A multiple probe across behaviors design was used with four children with DS and five typically developing peers.
• The 'Read, Ask, Answer, Prompt' strategy was implemented during baseline and intervention phases.
• Data collected included percentage of correctly identified symbols, rate of symbolic communication, and number of different words.

Main Results:

• A functional relation was found between AAC-MOD and improved symbol identification for 3 participants.
• AAC-MOD increased the rate of symbolic communication for 2 participants and the number of different words for 2 participants.
• All participants maintained symbol identification; however, gains in symbolic communication did not generalize to play contexts.

Conclusions:

• AAC-MOD is an effective strategy for teaching vocabulary and enhancing symbolic communication rates in young children with DS.
• The findings support the use of AAC-MOD within dialogic reading for children with DS.
• Further research is needed to explore generalization of communication gains to other contexts.