Effects of Augmentative and Alternative Communication on Challenging Behavior: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

The purposes of this review were to (a) use meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of single-case AAC intervention research on challenging behaviors exhibited by individuals with disabilities, (b) identify study characteristics that moderate intervention effects, and (c) evaluate the quality of research. The authors provided inferential and descriptive analyses of 54 studies representing 111 participants and estimated effect sizes using the Nonoverlap of All Pairs (NAP) method. Overall, AAC interventions were found to be equally effective across a broad spectrum of participants and interventions. AAC interventions were more effective with younger children than with adults. Interventions in which functional behavior assessments (FBA) were used had significantly larger effect sizes than those that did not use FBAs. Further, functional communication training interventions resulted in larger effect sizes than Picture Exchange Communication System interventions. Descriptive analysis revealed that (a) interventions often occurred in atypical environments (e.g., therapy room, experimental room) and with atypical interventionists (e.g., therapists, researchers), and (b) numerous studies did not exhibit quality characteristics of single-case research.

Use of iPad/iPods with Individuals with Autism and other Developmental Disabilities: A Meta-analysis of Communication Interventions

“…SGDs may facilitate expressive language skills (Sigafoos et al 2003). This is consistent with the existing literature that when participants' communication is enhanced through AAC systems, challenging behaviors may decrease because they may have learned a new method to communicate instead of unconventional methods (i.e., challenging behaviors) (Walker and Snell 2013).…”

Effects of Communication Partner Instruction on the Communication of Individuals using AAC: A Meta-Analysis

“…given the ongoing growth of the aaC research base and the need for practitioners to access information regarding evidence-based practice, there is a pressing need for articles synthesizing the aaC literature (schlosser & sigafoos, 2009). an increasing number of systematic reviews have recently appeared in the aaC literature and include those focusing on such topics as reading instruction (barker, saunders, & brady, 2012), peer interactions (Chung, Carter, & sisco, 2012), autism (ganz et al, 2012schlosser & Wendt, 2008), challenging behaviors (Walker & snell, 2013), tangible symbol use (roche et al, 2014), and facilitated communication (schlosser et al, 2014). given the presence of the growing body of evidence investigating the use of partner instruction in aaC, there is a need to summarize and synthesize this body of work as well, which is the focus of the present article.…”

Communicative Competence for Individuals who require Augmentative and Alternative Communication: A New Definition for a New Era of Communication?

“…This research has established empirical evidence of the positive impact of AAC (Beukelman et al, 2007;Bopp, Brown, & Mirenda, 2004;Branson & Demchak, 2009;Fried-Oken et al, 2012;Ganz et al, 2011;Machalicek et al, 2010;Roche et al, 2014;Schlosser, Sigafoos, & Koul, 2009;Walker & Snell, 2013;Wendt, 2009) and has demonstrated that these gains come at no risk to speech development or recovery (e.g., Millar, Light, & Schlosser, 2006;Romski et al, 2010). As a fi eld, we should take pride in this increased research base that has resulted in advances in evidence-based AAC services.…”