Lyle L. Lloyd

Augmentative and alternative communication: An historic perspective

During the past 3 decades, the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has emerged as a major development for the benefit of individuals with little or no functional speech. This paper attempts to document the social and historic events that led to the emergence of the discipline of AAC and to identify some major milestones in its development. The paper outlines the trends and transitions that have occurred in the areas of aided and unaided communication, intervention, service delivery, consumer issues, and professional development. Although abundant information was only available about the course of development in a few countries, the authors have attempted to use available resources to present the major international events and developments that influenced the evolution of AAC from a North American perspective.

Early cognitive skills as prerequisites to augmentative and alternative communication use: What are we waiting for?

The observation of correlations between cognitive abilities and language and communication abilities in normally developing children has led to the assumption that there are specific cognitive prerequisites to the development of symbolic communication. For many individuals with severe disabilities, this focus has led to a clinical decision to teach these prerequisite skills or to wait for them to emerge before providing communication programs either for teaching speech or for introducing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) techniques. In this paper, literature regarding cognitive prerequisites to communication development for nondisabled children and for individuals with disabilities is reviewed. Issues related to providing communication teaching programs are discussed, and specific intervention strategies are presented.

Concomitant use of the matrix strategy and the mand-model procedure in teaching graphic symbol combinations

Matrix strategies employing parts of speech arranged in systematic language matrices and milieu language teaching strategies have been successfully used to teach word combining skills to children who have cognitive disabilities and some functional speech. The present study investigated the acquisition and generalized production of two-term semantic relationships in a new population using new types of symbols. Three children with cognitive disabilities and little or no functional speech were taught to combine graphic symbols. The matrix strategy and the mand-model procedure were used concomitantly as intervention procedures. A multiple probe design across sets of action – object combinations with generalization probes of untrained combinations was used to teach the production of graphic symbol combinations. Results indicated that two of the three children learned the early syntactic-semantic rule of combining action – object symbols and demonstrated generalization to untrained action – object combinations and generalization across trainers. The results and future directions for research are discussed.

Manual Sign Translucency and Referential Concreteness in the Learning of Signs

The transmission and interpretation of manual signs consist of the sign productions and the comprehension of the referents which the signs represent. Signs are translucent to the degree that an observer can perceive a relationship between a sign and its referent. Likewise, a referent is said to be concrete or abstract, depending on whether the referent can be envisioned in a psychological image. The present study investigated sign learning as a function of sign translucency and referential concreteness. Translucency and concreteness levels were varied, and naive sign language learners attempted to learn a list of signreferent pairs. The results indicated that signs high in translucency and referents high in concreteness facilitated learning, while low levels of each variable inhibited list learning. Mixed conditions led to intermediate learning performance. Implications for choosing initial sign lexicons for severely language-impaired, non-deaf populations (e.g. the mentally retarded) are discussed.

Toward an Augmentative and Alternative Communication symbol taxonomy: A proposed superordinate classification

As the first step in developing a symbol taxonomy, the major augmentative and alternative communication symbol classifications reported in the literature over the past decade are reviewed. The terms used to classify symbols are critically evaluated according to their internal logic, their sociolinguistic implications, and their compatibility with common definitions and usage. The clinical and educational relevance of the classification approach in question, and the reduction of dualclassification ambiguity that a given dichotomy may provide are also evaluated. The aided/unaided classification is based on production of the symbol by the user, while the static/dynamic classification is based upon the nature of the symbols signal. Although both of these dichotomies have clinical/educational and theoretical/research implications, the aided/unaided dichotomy is proposed as the less ambiguous and the more practical classification for the superordinate level of a taxonomy. A major purpose of this paper is to st...

Toward a common usage of lconicity terminology

One problem facing the field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is inconsistent terminology. This may be due in part to the international and transdisciplinary nature of the field....

Further development of an Augmentative and Alternative Communication symbol taxonomy

This paper is a continuation of the Lloyd and Fuller (1986) manuscript that proposed the aided/unaided dichotomy as the superordinate level of an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) symbol taxonomy. Possible categories for the proposed subordinate levels of the taxonomy are based on three sources: (1) previously published AAC symbol selection considerations, (2) the recently published output/input modalities scheme (van Balkom & Welle Donker-Gimbrere, 1988), and (3) the static/dynamic classification, which was discussed in the previous taxonomy paper. Using six criteria (the five mentioned in Lloyd & Fuller, 1986, in addition to a sixth criterion), the static/dynamic, the iconic/opaque, and the set/system classifications are proposed as subordinate levels under the superordinate “aided/unaided.” This taxonomy is proposed to stimulate further discussion and research in an attempt to expand our fields clinical/educational and research/theoretical base.

Comparison of Graphic Symbol Learning in Individuals with Aphasia and Right Hemisphere Brain Damage

This study compared the differences in performance on recognition of graphic symbols across time by individuals with aphasia, individuals with right-hemisphere brain damage, and neurologically normal adults. The subjects, seen individually, learned 40 Blissymbols. The symbols were selected so that the effects of symbol translucency and complexity on the recognition of graphic symbols could be examined. A paired-associate learning paradigm was used to teach the symbol-referent pairs to subjects. The results indicated that individuals with aphasia and neurologically normal adults do not differ significantly in recognition of graphic symbols. However, individuals with right-hemisphere damage recognized fewer symbols compared to individuals with aphasia and normal adults, suggesting that they have difficulty in associative learning of graphic symbols. Additionally, translucency was found to be a potent factor in the recognition of Blissymbols by all groups. The finding that individuals with severe chronic aphasia can learn and retain graphic symbols has significant clinical implications for aphasia rehabilitation.

Positioning Students with Cerebral Palsy to Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Many students who use augmentative and alternative communication have severe forms of cerebral palsy which make it necessary to consider positioning as part of their communication intervention. This paper reviews the interrelated communication and positioning needs of these students, and then proposes the wheelchair as the primary position for use of a communication aid. Guidelines for good wheelchair positioning are presented.

Augmentative and alternative communication: A field in transition

The field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) has emerged as a rapidly developing area. This paper highlights a number of critical professional and research issues which were the subject of discussion at a recent meeting of several members of the AAC community. Issues related to public policy, documentation, and direct service provision are addressed in terms of the transitions experienced by the field and directions for future development.