The current study is a post-hoc analysis of four 5-year-old children with highly Purpose: unintelligible speech who are using graphic symbols to communicate simple sentences. This analysis focused on the word order error and self-correction patterns of the participants. The word order errors observed were omissions, substitutions, inversions, and Method: additions. The self-correction analysis focused on the accuracy, mode and timing of each child’s responses. The word order analysis revealed that the most common error for Results & Conclusion: three out of four participants was the omission of a word. However, there were no consistencies throughout the data that revealed a linguistic pattern to the children’s errors. The results of the self-correction analysis revealed that, with auditory feedback from the voice output, the children corrected more often right after they made an error on the AAC device with their corrected response moving closer to the target. INTRODUCTION A speech disorder is a disruption in the fine motor acts required for an individual to have intelligible speech. Motor speech disorders can be due to muscle weakness (dysarthria) or a disruption in the motor planning stage of speaking (apraxia), however these disorders are not limited to these etiologies (ASHA). Some individuals with severe motor speech disorders have speech that is significantly unintelligible, such that they cannot meet their communication needs by only relying on their speech. In such cases, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) may be used to help a person meet his or her communication needs. For children and adults with motor-speech disorders, AAC gives them a mode to communicate with others. There are various forms of AAC from the popular Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) to graphic symbol communication, which consists of pictures with labels. Graphic symbols are critical for preliterate children because while they may not be able to read, they can recognize the symbols and use them to communicate with others. There are also many high tech devices available that produce voice output. While the technology of AAC has become increasingly popular, there are still many questions concerning the mode and the
Purpose: The current study is a post-hoc analysis of four 5-year-old children with highly unintelligible speech who are using graphic symbols to communicate simple sentences. This analysis focused on the word order error and self-correction patterns of the participants. Method: The word order errors observed were omissions, substitutions, inversions, and additions. The self-correction analysis focused on the accuracy, mode and timing of each child’s responses. Results & Conclusion: The word order analysis revealed that the most common error for three out of four participants was the omission of a word. However, there were no consistencies throughout the data that revealed a linguistic pattern to the children’s errors. The results of the self-correction analysis revealed that, with auditory feedback from the voice output, the children corrected more often right after they made an error on the AAC device with their corrected response moving closer to the target. INTRODUCTION A speech disorder is a disruption in the fine motor acts required for an individual to have intelligible speech. Motor speech disorders can be due to muscle weakness (dysarthria) or a disruption in the motor planning stage of speaking (apraxia), however these disorders are not limited to these etiologies (ASHA). Some individuals with severe motor speech disorders have speech that is significantly unintelligible, such that they cannot meet their communication needs by only relying on their speech. In such cases, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) may be used to help a person meet his or her communication needs. For children and adults with motor-speech disorders, AAC gives them a mode to communicate with others. There are various forms of AAC from the popular Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) to graphic symbol communication, which consists of pictures with labels. Graphic symbols are critical for preliterate children because while they may not be able to read, they can recognize the symbols and use them to communicate with others. There are also many high tech devices available that produce voice output. While the technology of AAC has become increasingly popular, there are still many questions concerning the mode and the
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