Understanding the characteristics of students with complex communication needs and significant cognitive disabilities is an important first step toward creating the kinds of supports and services required to help them successfully access the general education curriculum, achieve grade-level standards, and improve overall communication competence. The First Contact Survey was designed to collect important information about students with significant cognitive disabilities who were eligible to take the Dynamic Learning Maps™ (DLM(®)) alternate assessment based on alternate achievement standards. From November 2012-May 2013, the survey was used to gather information regarding more than 44,787 students. At that time, the goal was to use the data to inform the development of the DLM assessment. Although the survey includes a wealth of information regarding this large sample of students, the reanalysis of the data reported in the current study focused on the motor, sensory, language, reading, and writing skills of students with significant cognitive disabilities, based on their speech production abilities. Significant differences were identified across each of the domains between students who do and do not use speech with or without aided augmentative and alternative communication.
Robust vocabulary instruction is an important part of comprehensive English language arts (ELA) instruction. Vocabulary instruction supports students in learning the meaning of words to build a receptive vocabulary that they can rely on to comprehend the words they read and hear. Many students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD) and complex communication needs (CCN) struggle to read or understand grade-level words, concepts, and texts. Explicit vocabulary instruction can play an important role in addressing this area of need. Addressing the vocabulary needs of students with SCD and CCN in a comprehensive way calls for a greater investment of instructional time to build their receptive vocabulary and conceptual understandings of new vocabulary. It calls for leveraging the high frequency expressive vocabulary students are likely to have available on their augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems to make meaningful connections and demonstrate their understanding of new vocabulary. The aim is successful comprehension across ELA and other academic domains through a robust and expanding receptive vocabulary that extends beyond the words commonly programmed onto AAC systems. Finally, vocabulary instruction should be one part of a comprehensive approach to ELA instruction, with substantial time and effort also devoted to reading and writing instruction so that one day students with SCD and CCN can use spelling and writing to bridge the gap between the words they know and the words they have access to use expressively.
A review of best practices and recent research efforts provide guidance for serving school-age early communicators with complex communication needs (CCN) and significant cognitive disabilities (SCD). Our aim as SLPs working with students with CCN and SCD is to support the development of intentional and symbolic communication abilities and implement augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems that provide the means for interaction with a range of partners for varied purposes on a myriad of topics. Consistent exposure to knowledgeable communication partners who respond in meaningful ways to expressive behaviors leads the way for learning to use symbolic forms of communication. It is through our instruction and aided language input across a range of contexts that our students with SCD learn and assign meaning to the symbolic representations we teach. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have heightened expectations about what students with SCD should know and be able to do and offer contexts that emphasize communication as an integral part of learning. Meeting these expectations through active participation and interaction in all learning activities requires reliable access to systems of communication that support ongoing development of abilities as a speaker, listener, reader, and writer.
Many students with significant disabilities have complex communication needs and are not yet able to express themselves using speech, sign language, or other symbolic forms. These students rely on nonsymbolic forms of communication like facial expressions, body movements, and vocalizations. They benefit from responsive partners who interpret and honour these forms and teach symbolic alternatives. The purpose of this article is to describe ways in which classroom teachers and other classroom staff can be responsive partners using three targeted teaching practices: (a) attributing meaning and honouring early communication behaviours, (b) giving students personal access to aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems with a core vocabulary, and (c) using aided language input strategies to show students what is possible and how to use graphic symbols on aided AAC systems. These teaching practices are discussed using scenarios to illustrate how each can be integrated into typical academic and non-academic classroom activities.
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