This thesis is concerned with communication disability and possibilities its therapy by the help of augmentative and alternative communications methods. It describes basic forms disturbed communications possibility and their symptomology too. Further it is focusing on disorders of speech and communication, whichs are consequence of other different disorder, e.g . child's cerebral palsy, autism, sensuous infliction . This work is bent on methods of augmentative and alternative communication ( AAC), which are accessible in the Czech republic.Practical part is engaged on experiences of individual informants (parents which look after the child with disturbed communications ability) with augmentative and alternative communications systems. It deals with possibilities of the usage of AAK system and its benefit for children.

This thesis examines the development of communication skills of children with developmental dysphasia, with the use of augmentative and alternative communication. The work is made up of theoretical and practical part. The research focuses on the influence of elements augmentative communication intervention in children with developmental dysphasia in preschool facilities. The research part is formed by empirical research based on a case study of a boy with developmental dysphasia, case reports describing the progress of special education intervention in preschool institutions, research part is completed by the conclusions of the investigation and recommendations for practice. The aim is to show the positive influence the course of education of children with developmental dysphasia support structured learning and noticeable advances in communication development of children with the support of the graphic expression.

The thesis deals with communication abilities of pupils attending special elementary school. The theoretical part summarizes the general knowledge of communication, the development of speech in the healthy population and impaired communication abilities. It also deals with the description, the etiology and symptoms of mental disability, Down syndrome and combined disabilities, especially cerebral palsy. The final part summarizes knowledge of augmentative and alternative communication used for patients with severely impaired communication skills. The practical part consists of the interpretation of the results of the research, dealing with the analysis of the communication skills of pupils from special elementary school, especially comparisons of evaluations of this communication by family members and professionals who work with the specific person. The result of the research is the fact that the communication skills of students from special elementary schools are very individual and family assessment and key worker may not coincide. It always depends on the type of disability, support of families and professionals as well as the personality traits of the individual. In any event, there has to be a good cooperation between family and professionals that helps to set up communication development to...

The onset of a progressive, fatal illness such as Motor Neuron Disease (MND) inevitably results in physical and communication disabilities that impinge on the individuals’ ability to remain functionally independent. The loss of speech as a result of dysarthria, a motor speech disorder, is one of the most profound changes that the person with MND will experience. The decline in the individuals’ speech intelligibility, that negatively influences communication effectiveness, implies that in 80% of cases alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) strategies are required to support the daily communication needs of individuals with MND. The dyadic nature of chronic illness implies that multiple aspects of one of the most important adult relationships, marriage, will be affected. Roles and responsibilities performed by each member of the couple will continually change as the disease progresses. The emotional trauma of adjusting to the unavoidable alteration in their relationship elicits strong emotions such as guilt, anger and frustration. Communication is one of the most constructive ways of dealing with these emotions. The ability of spouses to convey their innermost thoughts, feelings and intimacy through communicative interaction is vitally important in marital communication. The aim of this study was to compare how persons with MND and their spouses perceive changes in their marital communication in relation to the deteriorating speech of persons with MND. Fourteen couples divided into two participant groups, persons with MND and spouses, participated in this non-experimental correlational research study. Data was collected during three visits at six-monthly intervals over a 12 month period. At each of these visits both participant groups completed a variety of objective and subjective measures, of which twenty percent were interrated by independent raters. Results confirmed the inevitable decline in speech intelligibility of persons with MND across the disease progression. The persons with MND did not report a change in their perception of marital communication although their spouses indicated a statistically significant decrease between the first and last visits. Interestingly, there was no statistically significant relationship between the deteriorating speech of persons with MND and the couples’ perception of marital communication, confirming that marital communication was not influenced by decreased speech intelligibility. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

A severe aphasia following a cerebral vascular accident is characterised by generalised deficits in most speech-language domains. The clinical dilemma remains focused on the extensive verbal speech impairment and in most cases little possibility of regaining verbal speech production. Many individuals living with severe aphasia use augmentative and alternative communication strategies to assist them in getting their communication needs met in their everyday lives. The Blissymbol system is one of the graphic symbol systems that can be used to supplement existing communication and speech strategies of the individual with little or no speech. Although the use of AAC strategies is gaining momentum in its application to severe aphasia, however, there still remain questions on how best to help these individuals learn and retain such strategies. Not only are individuals with severe aphasia faced with a memory task when learning AAC strategies such as Blissymbols, additional complexity to AAC interventions is derived from clinical presentation of severe aphasia. The presence of extensive damage to the neural centers responsible for linguistic processing and semantic retrieval makes learning of new AAC strategies all the more complicated. Research studies have looked at whether individuals with severe aphasia can learn to recognise and retain Blissymbols. Although these studies have successfully shown that individuals with severe aphasia can learn Blissymbols, there is little information available regarding how these symbols can best be taught and retained over time individuals with severe aphasia. Recently the research that has looked at the application of symbol learning with persons presenting with severe aphasia using computer technology and sophisticated application software has highlighted the importance of therapeutic methods that may enhance the learning of such software. This study looks at the application of the self-generation effect as a viable method for enhancing the recognition of Blissymbols in persons presenting with severe aphasia. The self-generation effect is the finding of superior retention and recall for stimuli constructed or generated by an individual. Memory for stimuli such as words, numbers and pictures were found to be enhanced by the extent to which the individual was involved in its construction. Using a 2X2X3 factorial design, this study compared the recognition levels for Blissymbols taught using two treatment approaches which was the self-generation condition and the non self-generation condition. During three experimental sessions which included two withdrawal periods participants were taught using both treatments to recognise a set of Blissymbols. Recognition levels were tested during recognition probes and retention probes. The results from these probes were compared in order to identify which treatment produced superior recognition levels. The data analysis conducted showed that although there was no recognition advantage for the self-generation effect seen during the three recognition probes some advantage for the self-generation effect was seen during the retention probes conducted. The self-generation effect began to emerge by the final retention probe following a withdrawal period of seven days. The self-generation treatment showed better retention of symbol recognition over time. Previous studies have shown that the self-generation effect failed to emerge with stimuli that were new or unfamiliar. This trend was also seen in this study. The results provide support for a semantic-association theory for the self-generation effect. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

Cross-cultural differences in the perception of pictorial material has long been established and documented. In the Republic of South Africa, which is increasingly globalized, and where it is appealing from financial, economic and training perspectives, the temptation is to use Western-based AAC symbol systems and strategies in intervention with clients from other language and cultural orientations. The aim of this study was to determine the translucency ratings of specific Blissymbols as rated by six-to seven-year-old Setswana-speaking children. A secondary aim was to determine whether the ratings changed after second and third exposures in order to determine the learnability of these symbols. A brief comparison was made between the results of the current study and the results reported in the Quist et al., study (1998). Thirty-five Setswana learners were exposed to 93 selected Blissymbols, based on a study by Quist et al., (1998). A three-point semantic differential scale, consisting of three faces accompanied each Blissymbol. Participants marked the face that best described his/her perception of the specific symbol’s iconicity. This procedure was repeated over a period of three days. The results indicated that the translucency ratings of the majority of the Blissymbols ranged from moderate to high. The research further demonstrated significant differences in translucency ratings between the first and second exposures, suggesting learning of the symbols. A smaller difference was noted between Days 2 and 3. A correlation in findings was noted between the current study and the Dutch and US studies (Quist et al., 1998). / Dissertation (M (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / MA / unrestricted

Children with limited speech using graphic symbols for communication often express themselves predominantly through single symbols rather than symbol combinations. This study aimed to investigate the effect of an intervention strategy that was incorporated into shared storybook reading on the production of graphic symbol combinations. Three children between the ages of 7;9 (years;months) and 10;8 with limited speech and physical impairments participated in the study. A multiple probe design across behaviours (3 different types of semantic symbol combinations) was used, replicated across the 3 participants. Intervention entailed prompting the production of strategic symbol combinations (generated from a matrix) during shared storybook reading by using a prompting hierarchy. The participants’ production of combinations targeted during intervention as well as their ability to generalize to nontarget combinations from the matrix was monitored using a probe test (picture description task). All 3 participants showed some gains in acquiring the combinations and generalizing to nontarget combinations, as measured by the probe test. While 1 participant showed convincing effects, the other 2 showed lower effects. Lower effects may be partly ascribed to participant characteristics as well as to the discrepancies between the intervention and probe contexts. All participants performed better within the shared storybook reading context. Results suggest that the production of symbol combinations can be facilitated during shared storybook reading and that the matrix strategy promotes generalization to untrained semantic combinations. However, participant gains may not reflect immediately in formal testing situations. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

The thesis deals with the communication development in deaf children after cochlear implantation, which have at the same time diagnosed autism spectrum disorder. The theoretical part is divided into three chapters. First two chapters deal with specifics of hearing impairment, or rather autism spectrum disorder, and its effects on the overall development of the child with an emphasis on communication ability. There are briefly introduced the classification of hearing impairments and compensation aids related to the topic of the work - hearing aids and cochlear implants. There is also space devoted to the characteristics of particular autism spectrum disorders. The third chapter describes the most common communication systems or aids used by persons with hearing disabilities, more precisely with the autism spectrum disorder, and the possibility of communication of people with a combination of these two disabilities. The practical part of the thesis is devoted to qualitative research, which main objective was to find out how obtaining a cochlear implant may influence the development of communication of a deaf child with autism spectrum disorder. As part of the research, interviews with parents of these children were conducted. These interviews were supplemented by open-ended questionnaires addressed...

The purpose of the thesis was to find out teachers' perception of the phenomenon of alternative and complementary communication (AAC) and how AAC enables pupils to develop their communicative and linguistic abilities. The study has a qualitative approach and it is based on a phenomenographic research approach and a socio-cultural perspective. The empirical data collection was done through interviews with eight teachers. The teachers work at or have experience of special needs schools for pupils with intellectual disability and pupils who lack verbal communication.  To analyze the material, thematic analysis was used. Through the interviews, it emerged from the teachers' statements that the phenomenon of AAC supports pupils who lack verbal communication to learning and social interactions. This, in turn, enables participation and independence. Based on the analysis of the results, four levels of description categories of AAC were made visible. Description category one is the most basic level and description category four the most advanced. Based on the results of the study, it is made visible that students should be offered communicative and linguistic development through the support of individualized AAC, practiced on their communicative and linguistic abilities based on the proximal development zone. It emerged from the result that categories one and two do not develop students' linguistic abilities in a qualified way, since within these categories of description, communication consists primarily of one-word sentences and does not contain grammar, word classes or sentence structures. Under category one you find AAC methods where students are offered communication through single images and objects.  Categories three and four include communication tools that contain linguistic development possibilities, such as alphabets, text, written language and speech synthesis that enable multi-word sentences. Based on the informants' statements, the need for AAC methods that develop the students' linguistic abilities is made visible. It also emerged that the collaboration with habilitation and speech therapists was a crucial factor in being able to offer students communication tools from categories three and four.

Objective: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) aimed at restoring communication to people with severe neuromuscular disabilities often use event-related potentials (ERPs) in scalp-recorded EEG activity. Up to the present, most research and development in this area has been done in the laboratory with young healthy control subjects. In order to facilitate the development of BCI most useful to people with disabilities, the present study set out to: (1) determine whether people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and healthy, age-matched volunteers (HVs) differ in the speed and accuracy of their ERP-based BCI use; (2) compare the ERP characteristics of these two groups; and (3) identify ERP-related factors that might enable improvement in BCI performance for people with disabilities. Methods: Sixteen EEG channels were recorded while people with ALS or healthy age-matched volunteers (HVs) used a P300-based BCI. The subjects with ALS had little or no remaining useful motor control (mean ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised 9.4 (±9.5SD) (range 0-25)). Each subject attended to a target item as the items in a 6. ×. 6 visual matrix flashed. The BCI used a stepwise linear discriminant function (SWLDA) to determine the item the user wished to select (i.e., the target item). Offline analyses assessed the latencies, amplitudes, and locations of ERPs to the target and non-target items for people with ALS and age-matched control subjects. Results: BCI accuracy and communication rate did not differ significantly between ALS users and HVs. Although ERP morphology was similar for the two groups, their target ERPs differed significantly in the location and amplitude of the late positivity (P300), the amplitude of the early negativity (N200), and the latency of the late negativity (LN). Conclusions: The differences in target ERP components between people with ALS and age-matched HVs are consistent with the growing recognition that ALS may affect cortical function. The development of BCIs for use by this population may begin with studies in HVs but also needs to include studies in people with ALS. Their differences in ERP components may affect the selection of electrode montages, and might also affect the selection of presentation parameters (e.g., matrix design, stimulation rate). Significance: P300-based BCI performance in people severely disabled by ALS is similar to that of age-matched control subjects. At the same time, their ERP components differ to some degree from those of controls. Attention to these differences could contribute to the development of BCIs useful to those with ALS and possibly to others with severe neuromuscular disabilities.