Comparing Acquisition, Generalization, Maintenance, and Preference Across Three AAC Options in Four Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Evaluating acquisition, preference and discrimination in requesting skills between picture exchange and iPad®-based speech generating device across preschoolers

“…However contrary findings from other studies revealed that some children with developmental disabilities also chose low-tech PE systems or seemed to prefer both systems equally (e.g. Couper et al, 2014;Ganz et al, 2013;Lorah et al, 2013;McLay et al, 2015;Stasolla et al, 2014). These findings highlight the importance of taking multi-faceted, direct data into account when comparing the efficacy of AAC systems.…”

Analyzing data from single-case alternating treatments designs.

“…Moreover, randomization was also judged to be present when drawing conditions from a hat (e.g., Schneider et al, 2013) or when flipping a coin (e.g., Yakubova & Bouck, 2014). In contrast, when no details were provided about the order or sequence of the conditions (e.g., Pane et al, 2015) or when only a “counterbalanced sequence” without further specification was reported (e.g., McLay et al, 2015; Mong & Mong, 2012), we considered that the design does not entail randomization.…”

Technological Evolvement in AAC Modalities to Foster Communications of Verbally Challenged ASD Children: A Systematic Review

“…Several studies [39] [40] [41], demonstrate that children with ASD and development delay exhibit preference of one AAC mode over others that have been taught to them and the initial preference might be based upon the presentation of the system (such as iPad) but as the proficiency improves, there is a possibility of transition in preference and some other factors, for example, ease and efficiency of use might also affect the preference. Following the research thread, the study by L. McLay et al et al [42] extends the previous works [40,41,43], in which comparison of acquisition, preference, and maintenance among three AAC modes (PECS, Manual Sign(MS), SGD) took place among four new children with the generalization of new contexts and new communication and provide a tentative inference that acquisition rate might not be the crucial value for the election of AAC option for children with developmental defects and other factors (maintenance, generalization, preference) need to be considered. Subsequently, the replication [44] of the former study and the focus of the study is to answer the succeeding questions: whether the intervention consists of interruption, time delay, and less physical supervision and differential reinforcement can be effective to teach children to request continuation of play with three distinct AAC modes, whether maintenance will sustain over time and preference of AAC for each child and whether such preference sustains over time.…”