Supporting the development of narrative skills of an eight-year old child who uses an augmentative and alternative communication device

Abstract

Narrative abilities have been linked to literacy, communicative competence and development of identity. Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) may be at risk for difficulties in the development of narrative skills due to differences in their language learning opportunities and limitations of their AAC systems. The structural dimensions of the narrative discourse produced by children who use AAC have been observed to be poorly organized, limited in coherence and severely impoverished in both vocabulary and grammar. In addition, the children usually rely heavily on narrative co-construction and may not be given sufficient opportunities by their communication partners to provide narrative features. This study describes the process used to support the development of autonomous narrative skills of an eight-year old child who uses a voice output communication aid (VOCA) to communicate and who demonstrates significant delays in narrative formation. Results indicate that narratives produced with her VOCA improved in both linguistic and story complexity following intervention that targeted understanding and use of story structures.