Linking Clinic With Classroom in Intensive Focused Preservice Education on Augmentative and Alternative Communication

This article reports a pilot study that combined clinical training and academic instruction in a graduate-level augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) course. The authors aim to (a) provide a detailed description of the AAC course and (b) present preliminary data regarding the graduate students' perception on the AAC course and their own competencies in AAC.

Forty-three graduate students completed an intensive focused course that included AAC fieldwork (i.e., direct clinical service and caregiver training) as well as academic content. In delivering the clinical and academic content, the course instructor followed the principles of problem-based learning. During their final semester in the graduate program, the students completed a survey regarding the AAC course and their self-efficacy in AAC services.

Thirty-eight among the 43 students perceived that the AAC fieldwork, embedded into the AAC course, made them feel competent or strongly competent. The entire 43 respondents listed the AAC fieldwork as the component that they liked in the AAC course. When students were asked about their self-efficacy in AAC services at three different time points (i.e., before taking the AAC course, after taking the AAC course, and at the time of the survey), their ratings were significantly higher for after taking the AAC course and at the time of the survey, compared to before taking the course.

This study suggests the significance of compulsory fieldwork embedded in the AAC training as evidenced by the graduate students' subjective perception of competence and preparedness in AAC services following the AAC course.