Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is a field of clinical practice that either replaces or supports an individual’s spoken communication. It is intended for all individuals who, due to challenges in the area of speech-language expression and/or understanding, cannot meet their communication needs through the use of speech. Augmentative and alternative communication is primarily inside the scope of speech and language pathologists, however, achieving independence and effective use of AAC system users requires collaboration among various professionals, the family, and the users themselves. In the school environment, creating numerous and diverse communication opportunities for AAC users necessitates collaboration between the teacher and the speech and language pathologists. One possible form of this collaboration is co-teaching, which is already quite established in the education of students with various speech-language and/or communication disorders abroad, while in Slovenia research on co-teaching with AAC users has not been observed yet. In the theoretical part, we present the definition and key characteristics of augmentative and alternative communication, with particular attention given to the communicator as one of the tools, as well as cerebral palsy as one of the most common disorders among users. We then move on to presenting basic models of collaboration and associated service delivery models, with a detailed presentation of co-teaching primarily involving the collaboration between the speech and language pathologist and the teacher. The ChalkTalk program is also presented, as it was used as the foundation for conducting the research.
The empirical part consists of two sections: the first includes interviews conducted with the speech and language pathologist and the teacher of a student who uses a speech-generating device in the classroom; the second part is based on the method of observation. We repeated the observation process twice – first during a lesson conducted in a traditional manner, and second during a lesson conducted using co-teaching involving the speech and language pathologist and the teacher. The dual observation allowed us to compare the quantity and quality of communication opportunities between the two lessons, finding that the student who uses AAC had more opportunities for communication during the lesson conducted in the style of alternative co-teaching. The observed interactions were more frequently reciprocal and included more questions. Lastly, the difference was also noticeable in the area of communication functions; specifically, during the co-taught lesson, the student formulated more questions and more frequently created messages to share information, while the number of instances initiating interaction to direct attention to her work in the form of requests for feedback decreased compared to the first observation.
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