Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention (AAC) on Students with Disabilities

Abstract

Children with disabilities (e.g., Down Syndrome, Autism, Intellectual Disability, Apraxia of Speech, Cerebral Palsy, etc…) are at increased risk of various deficits, including speech and language development. Thus, they face challenges with their social communication and interactions, behaviors, academic achievement, and most importantly being independent. Currently, there is a rapid growing body of evidence and research-based studies on “Augmentative and Alternative Communication” intervention approach on non-verbal children with disabilities to facilitate their functional communication skills using manual signs, communication boards with symbols, and computerized devices (ranging from low-tech to high-tech). The use of this intervention has become an essential part of speech production for children with disabilities to experience the power of communication, express their needs, wants, feelings and emotions, and socialize by developing the foundation for literacy skills and later language. A systematic review of literature was conducted, using different keywords and electronic searches, to explore the efficacy of AAC intervention on their social communication skills, academic literacy skills, psychological and behavioral outcomes. In addition, the study aimed at assessing the differential impact of this intervention on domain-specific outcomes (social, behavioral, academic, psychological) as it may be more effective in one domain than in another and identifying gaps in existing literature to stimulate future research efforts aimed at developing new and more effective communication intervention strategies. Initially, a total of 762 studies were identified for screening through systematic searches of databases and then 13 studies were evaluated after setting inclusion and exclusion criteria. Findings indicated that there was evidence that augmentative and alternative communication intervention (AAC) enhanced functional communication interaction, improved literacy skills, reduced challenging behaviors, and boosted the children’s motivation, confidence, self-esteem and independent life-skills.