Communication Success and AAC: A Model of Symbol Acquisition

描述(申请人提供)：大多数儿童在第一年从符号前(如手势和发声)交流过渡到象征性(如文字)交流。这一转变使儿童能够更有效地进行交流，并导致语言习得的进一步发展。尽管社会互动主义理论描述了影响早期词汇学习的内生因素和环境因素，但促进这种转变的确切机制仍然没有完全被理解。对于包括自闭症在内的许多发育迟缓的儿童来说，过渡到符号交流是有风险的。当延迟持续到学龄前，孩子们经常被教导用某种形式的增强性或替代性交流(AAC)进行交流。这些形式可以包括标志、图片选择和/或语音输出通信辅助工具(VOCA)。尽管学龄前儿童对AAC的使用越来越多，但几乎没有证据表明特定的儿童和环境变量与沟通结果有关。学习AAC的儿童呈现出非常不同的特征和历史，但没有现有的证据基础来指导研究人员或实践者根据这些变量不同地应用干预措施或解释结果。我们假设，在与沟通结果相关的众多变量中，儿童的表征能力--如认知发展、理解、象征性游戏和语言前沟通水平所表明的--是沟通结果的重要预测因素。此外，我们假设这一预测因素的影响是由社会环境提供的支持和投入的数量所中介的。通过纵向研究，我们建议检验预测变量和中介变量之间的假设关系以及三种不同的结果--符号词汇发展、交际成功和交际修复过程中的符号替换。参与者将是100名患有发育障碍的幼儿和20名患有自闭症谱系障碍(ASD)的幼儿，他们都将学习如何与AAC沟通。将对ASD儿童队列进行单独的分析，以确定我们的模型在多大程度上适用于这一重要亚群的符号交流发展。这项拟议的研究将产生迄今为止从幼儿学习AAC的前瞻性研究收集到的最大数据集。这项研究可能会通过确定对AAC干预措施反应的潜在预测因素来改进对这些儿童的评估和干预做法。我们对儿童学习AAC的关注将通过记录在学习言语中观察到的过程在多大程度上也适用于学习其他符号模式来为符号化的理论描述提供信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Most children transition from presymbolic (e.g., gestures and vocalizations) to symbolic (e.g., words) communication during the first year of life. This transition enables children to communicate more efficiently and leads to further developments in language acquisition. The exact mechanisms that facilitate this transition are still not fully understood, although social-interactionist theories describe both endogenous and environmental factors affecting early word learning. The transition into symbolic communication is at risk for many children with developmental delays including autism. When delays persist into preschool ages, children are frequently taught to communicate with some form of augmentative or alternative communication (AAC). These forms may include signs, picture selection, and/or voice output communication aids (VOCA). Although use of AAC by preschool children is increasing, little evidence exists linking specific child and environmental variables to communication outcomes. Children learning AAC present with very different characteristics and histories but there is no existing evidence base to guide researchers or practitioners in differentially applying interventions or interpreting results based on these variables. We hypothesize that, of the many variables that could relate to communication outcomes, a child's representational capacity- as indicated by cognitive development, comprehension, symbolic play, and prelinguistic communication level- is a significant predictor of communication outcomes. Further, we hypothesize that the effects of this predictor are mediated by the amounts of supports and input offered by the social environment. Through a longitudinal study, we propose to test hypothesized relationships between predictor and mediating variables and three different outcomes- symbolic vocabulary development, communication success, and symbol substitutions during communication repairs. Participants will be 100 young children with developmental disabilities and 20 young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), all of whom will be learning to communicate with AAC. Separate analyses will be completed with the cohort of children with ASD to determine the extent to which our model applies to symbolic communication development by this important subgroup. The proposed research would produce the largest data set collected thus far from a prospective study of young children learning AAC. This research is likely to improve assessment and intervention practices for these children by identifying potential predictors of response to AAC interventions. Our focus on children learning AAC will inform theoretical accounts of symbolization by documenting the extent to which processes observed in learning speech also apply to learning other symbolic modes.