| Language&Technology |
Lesson 3: Readings (2) |
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Techniques for Enhancing Communication Productivity in AAC: A Review of Research.
Venkatagiri, H. S. (1995).
American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 4(4), 36-45.
Abstracted by Anne Daugherty
This paper summarizes selected findings on approaches to increasing the rate of communicatively appropriate responses in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The paper provides a review of research in this area, highlighting some of the less well-known techniques that have the potential for significant enhancement of communication.
Six approaches to AAC were reviewed and rated:
- Efficient keyboard layouts, a one-fingered, direct-selection keyboard layout designed such that the average distance the finger travels between keystrokes is minimal. Letters likely to follow each other are placed together.
- Reduced keys keyboards. Similar to the telephone key panel, three letters are placed on each key.
- Minspeak with Works strategy, where users sequence a series of icons to speak and/or write.
- Enlarged keys keyboards.
- Abbreviation expansion, where users can type codes instead of whole words.
- Lexical prediction, where the device offers a menu of likely works in response to user keystrokes.
The author used seven criteria to rate communication productivity enhancement:
- Learning needs, or how far the technique deviates from traditional orthography and the amount of new information the user need to learn.
- Cognitive-linguistic processing requirements, or the amount of technique-generated information that needs to be processed during the composition of messages.
- Perceptual-motor processing requirements, or the number and size of each cell on the keyboard.
- Vocabulary size covered.
- Rate increase potential, compared with the standard QWERTY keyboard.
- Effort reduction potential, compared to QWERTY.
- Availability.
The author summarizes that the two efficient keyboard layouts rate very highly on all seven features. The other approaches have advantages and disadvantages that must be weighed for each individual AAC consumer. In general, however, literate AAC users may find the alternative keyboard layouts offer simple and cost-effective techniques to aid communication.
