Teaching Children who use AAC to Produce Rule-Based Semantic-Syntactic Relations

项目摘要/摘要 在美国，每1000人中约有8人(240万人)需要增强型和替代性产品 交流(AAC)，以及令人惊讶的高比例-约24%-学龄前语言 病理学家(SLP)的病例数由需要AAC的儿童组成。许多使用AAC的儿童具有接受性 表明有潜力使用生成性语言的语言概况。然而，即使孩子们使用 AAC拥有相对较强的接受性语言特征，他们的语言表现力往往较差 结果。这一系列研究的长期目标是确定能够改善 使用AAC的儿童的语言表达障碍，这一目标非常适合NIDCD解决的使命 与患有沟通障碍的个体相关的生物医学和行为问题。这个 提出的项目由两个具体目标组成：目标1是评估辅助AAC建模的效果 通过对比目标对两个术语语义-句法关系的有效使用进行干预(例如， 动作-对象)，目标2侧重于评估参与者的能力 将学习概括为未经训练的语义-句法关系。有较强的前期治疗的儿童 理解水平(即TACL-3平均水平的1.5SD)将包括在研究中。据预测， 所有的孩子都会在产生句法正确的信息方面至少获得一些收获。一个 将采用实验控制的单一受试者、跨目标和受试者的多探针设计 评估结果，将使用模拟建模分析来衡量以下各项的统计显著性 每个参与者的进度。共有16名使用AAC的儿童(4-5岁)将参加。每个孩子都会是 指导使用三个语义-句法关系和三个额外的概括措施。这个 具有对比目标干预的辅助AAC建模将包括可逆目标(例如，狗)的模型 猪咬人；猪咬狗)提供给孩子的AAC设备。拟议的AAC研究的创新之处 包括：(1)教孩子将口语‘映射’到AAC设备上；(2)教授句法规则，以及 AAC人群基本上被忽视的领域；以及(3)强调词序，这是特别有问题的 适用于使用AAC的儿童。该项目的结果将对干预产生直接影响，并将 作为更大规模和更精细(R01)干预研究的基础。

Project Summary/Abstract Approximately 8 per 1,000 people in the U.S. (> 2.4 million) require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and surprisingly high percentage - about 24% - of preschool speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) caseloads consists of children who need AAC. Many children using AAC have receptive language profiles indicating the potential to use generative language. However, even when children who use AAC possess relatively strong receptive language profiles, they frequently have poor expressive language outcomes. The long-term aim of this line of research is to identify intervention approaches that ameliorate the expressive language deficits of children who use AAC, a goal well-suited to the NIDCD's mission to address biomedical and behavioral problems associated with individuals who have communication disorders. The proposed project is comprised of two specific aims: Aim 1 is to evaluate the effect of an aided AAC modeling with contrastive targets intervention on the productive use of two-term semantic- syntactic relations (e.g., action-object) by preschoolers who use AAC, and Aim 2 focuses on evaluating the participants' ability to generalize learning to untrained semantic-syntactic relations. Children with relatively strong pre-treatment comprehension levels (i.e., > 1.5 SD of the mean on the TACL-3) will be included in the study. It is predicted that all children will make at least some gains with producing syntactically correct messages. An experimentally controlled single subject, multiple probe across targets and participants design will be used to evaluate outcomes, and a Simulated Modeling Analysis will be used to measure the statistical significance of each participant's progress. A total of 16 children who use AAC (ages 4-5) will participate. Each child will be instructed in the use of three semantic-syntactic relations with three additional generalization measures. The aided AAC modeling with contrastive targets intervention will include models of reversible targets (e.g., DOG BITES PIG; PIG BITES DOG) provided on the child's AAC device. Innovations for the proposed AAC study include: (1) teaching children to 'map' spoken language onto AAC devices; (2) teaching syntactic rules, an area largely ignored with AAC populations; and (3) emphasizing word order, which is particularly problematic for children using AAC. The outcomes of this project will have immediate implications for intervention and will serve as the basis for larger and more refined (R01) intervention studies.