What is it about?
We did a survey of people who work with autistic kids in schools. This paper is one piece of the results. This paper focused on how people defined terms related to speech. We asked about traditionally common terms, including "speech," "no speech," "some/minimal speech," "functional speech," and "fluent speech." We also asked about terms that came from autistic communities: "intermittent speech," "unreliable speech," and "insufficient speech." Common themes included a focus on speech production, speech over all other forms of communication, and the functions of communication. Overall, most participants said they were unfamiliar with the terms that came from autistic communities.
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Why is it important?
We show some growing awareness of speech experiences among autistic students who could benefit from AAC (augmentative and alternative communication; describes communication supports for people with disabilities affecting speech) beyond those who don't speak at all or have extremely limited speech.
Perspectives
Ok so I really, really wanted the "why do we care if people can correctly define the community-defined terms?" results to make it into this paper but they didn't fit / the stats were a bit much for a primarily qualitative paper. But, spoiler alert: Professionals who were able to provide more accurate definitions for intermittent speech, unreliable speech, and insufficient speech were overall more likely to agree that they do/would offer AAC to autistic students.
Dr. Alyssa Hillary Zisk
AssistiveWare
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: School-Based Professionals' Knowledge of Autistic Speech and Augmentative and Alternative Communication Decision Making, Seminars in Speech and Language, November 2024, Thieme Publishing Group,
DOI: 10.1055/s-0044-1793928.
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