Growing up with AAC in the digital age: a longitudinal profile of communication across contexts from toddler to teen.
Marika King, MaryAnn Romski, Rose A Sevcik
PMID 32706274WHAT IT FOUND
One person with severe speech and language impairments used AAC from age 2 to 15, moving from symbol devices to text-to-speech on an iPhone.
He communicated independently, but test scores stayed below average.
Key findings
01Kyle changed AAC software five times and hardware nine times, and his most effective mode was text-to-speech on his phone.
02Kyle showed significant delays across language, cognition, and adaptive functioning at all ages, but his mother's ratings of his communication success rose 20% and difficulty fell 40% from age 2 to age 15.
03After four years of weekly oral-motor speech therapy, Kyle made little progress in speech abilities and resisted appointments, so his parents ended that therapy.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The paper reports one boy, not a group, so it cannot show what works for most children who use AAC. There was no control group, random assignment, or comparison treatment. Much of the information came from past reports and his mother's memory, and Kyle did not complete his own interview. Assessors and tests changed over time, and most standardized measures were not repeated, so trends across ages are hard to interpret. He received many supports at once, including early parent-coached AAC, school speech-language therapy, private oral-motor therapy, AAC specialist services, family advocacy, and changing devices, so the contribution of any single component cannot be separated. Formal literacy testing at age 15 was not available. The paper notes that standardized language and cognitive tests did not predict his functional AAC success.
Declared interests
The publication types list NIH extramural research support. The article text provided does not include a conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that AAC or text-to-speech apps caused Kyle's communication gains. This is one retrospective case report with no control group, multiple concurrent therapies and technology changes, and the authors state that generalizability is limited.