Aim
The development of aided language by children with severe speech and motor disabilities is an achievement, although the children face unique challenges (von Tetzchner et al., 2025). Interventions for children who use aided communication tend to focus on making requests and responding to choices provided by others, but augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) as language may have many functions (von Tetzchner, 2025). Research on aided language competence has mainly taken place in educational settings, and less is known about aided language competence in the home environment. The present cross-sectional study, part of the Becoming an Aided Communicator (BAC) project (von Tetzchner, 2018), reports on parents’ evaluations of their children’s aided language competence and use of language functions, and relates these to the children’s scores on standardized measures of spoken language comprehension and non-verbal reasoning.
Method
The BAC project includes children aged 5–15 years with little or no speech who use aided language, who have age-appropriate language comprehension and have used communication aids for more than one year. This study reports on 31 children and adolescents from Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway and the UK, with a mean age of 11;1 years;months (SD 2;9, range 5;3–15;10). The parents completed the BAC Communication Function Checklist, which comprises 72 items. The items were grouped into eight communicative function domains and three areas of communicative competence. The children’s language comprehension and non-verbal reasoning were evaluated with the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS) or the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), the Test for Reception of Grammar (TROG), and Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices.
Results
The overall rating from the BAC Communication Function Checklist showed individual variation in communicative competence and use of communicative functions. There were notable differences across function domains. The parents found functions as ‘express emotion’, ‘confirm and deny’, and ‘request’ were easier for their children than functions such as ‘provide information’ and ‘use humor and pretense’. Parents also observed that communicating with ‘multiple partners’, in ‘different situations’, and with ‘complex language’ were difficult for the young aided communicators. Furthermore, the checklist scores corresponded with the children’s scores on the TROG and Raven, suggesting that differences in sentence comprehension and reasoning influence how parents perceive their children’s communicative competence.
Conclusion
The results underscore the importance of providing young aided communicators with opportunities to express themselves across a range of communicative functions, expand diverse competencies, and engage in activities requiring more extended and complex utterances.
References
von Tetzchner, S. (2018). Introduction to the special issue on aided language processes, development, and use: An international perspective. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 34, 1–15.
von Tetzchner, S. (2025). Augmentative and alternative communication as language development. Revista de Logopedia, Foniatría y Audiología, 45 (4), 100535.
von Tetzchner, S., Martinsen, H., & Stadskleiv, K. (2025). Augmentative and alternative communication for children, adolescents and adults with developmental disorders. Routledge.
