This study I found analizes the experiences of parents with the ComAlong Communication Boards, a product designed to help children communicate, and that's to say an Augmentative and Alternative Communication device.
65 parents where surveyed, as well as a in-depth case study of four of those parents was made.
As any other device, for it to help the children, the children first needs to learn how to use it. In this case, the parents are the ones that serve as a model, and through the use of the board, they teach their children how it's used. The parents recieved eight 2-hour sessions to learn about the ComAlong Board in order to fully know how it's used and how to teach the child to use it. The ComAlong Board consists in a 10 situational and activity-based communication boards with pictures.
About the children, all of them had communication problems, and a large proportion of them had either ASD of Down Syndrome, some of the children were yet undiagnosed.
To keep track of the study, the parents participated in interviews, kept logbooks, recorded videos... The results of the survey (of the 65 parents) showed a good experience from the parents perspective, and most of them planned to use the boards continuosly or in the future. The value of the boards as a device recieved the lowest score, and most of the comments of the parents guessed it was because the child was still too young or the boards weren't personalized enough for them. Still, 61% of the parents said there was a positive change in the communication. In the case-studies, the four parents (two mothers, and a couple of mother and father), showed positive opinions of the boards, the major worry was still that there were too many pictures on each board.
Some parents showed worry that their child would communicate even less verbally if they had picture boards, but, as the study shows, those worries are unjustified and don't come true, because children that used the board began vocalizing soon after. "The boards don't make the kids lazy", they really encourage them to communicate more, both with speech and signs. I found this discovery very interesting, because I must admit I also thought that boards would make the kids only want to use pictures.
A considerable amount of parents kept saying it would be better if the boards could be personalized, and that the boards had too many pictures. These comments led to changes in the courses given to the parents about ComAlong, those changes included simpler boards for children in early stages of communication and the possibility to customize/personalize the boards.
This article, aside from presenting a device of AAC with a fairly good reception, it also highlights the importance of the role of the parents: AAC will be less efective if parents don't know about it or how to use it. And this, for me, means that all parents, not only parents with children with disabilities, should have to some extent knowledge of AAC, adquisition of language, and other important aspects of the development of a child, because they are the child primary support.
What did you think about the article? Did you find it interesting? Would you use the ComAlong Communication Boards?
Reference:
Jonsson, A., Kristoffersson, L., Ferm, U., & Thunberg, G. (2011). The ComAlong Communication Boards: Parents’ Use and Experiences of Aided Language Stimulation. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 27(2), 103–116.
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