Error patterns and revisions in the graphic symbol utterances of 3- and 4-year-old children who need augmentative and alternative communication.
Cathy Binger, Kaethe Richter, Allyson Taylor and 2 others
PMID 30806097WHAT IT FOUND
Children using AAC make different errors depending on the sentence type.
They struggle most with word order in subject-verb-object sentences and dropping small words like "is" in descriptions. They rarely pick the wrong symbol. Most self-corrections happen during construction and improve the final message.
Key findings
01Inversions were the most common error for agent-action-object targets, persisting into intervention, while omissions were the most common for entity-attribute targets.
02Participants revised 26% of utterances overall, with most revisions occurring during message construction rather than after playback.
03Substitutions (picking the wrong symbol) and additions were rare, accounting for only 9% and 2% of errors respectively.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study analyzed data from a very small sample of 10 children. Findings are limited to English syntax and specific graphic symbol displays. Reliability for revision coding was lower than ideal, requiring consensus resolution for disagreements. The original study design meant the number of sessions varied by participant, making direct comparison of learning rates difficult.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the high rate of inversions in subject-verb-object sentences as a general inability to order symbols. The study shows error patterns are specific to the sentence type, with other types like possessor-entity being produced with very few errors.