Effects of Interventions Involving Speech Output Technologies on Communication Outcomes for Individuals With Developmental Disabilities: A Scoping Review.

PURPOSE: This scoping review aimed to map the literature on the effects of interventions involving speech output technologies on communication outcomes for individuals with developmental disabilities other than autism spectrum disorder. METHOD: A scoping review methodology was used to limit bias in searching, selecting, coding, and synthesizing relevant intervention studies. This involved a multifaceted search for studies conducted between 1991 and March 2021 using various electronic databases, ancestry searches, and forward citation searches from selected articles. Studies had to meet stringent inclusion criteria. Each study was summarized in terms of authors, purpose, participants, design, speech output, outcomes, effectiveness, and quality appraisal. RESULTS: Twenty-five single-case experimental design studies (88 participants) and one group design studies (62 participants) qualified for inclusion. Most of the participants had multiple diagnoses followed by a diagnosis of cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. Most studies focused on requesting behaviors and to a much lesser extent on syntactic structure and word identification. A dearth of high-quality studies was identified. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, there is a paucity of high-quality research investigating the effects of speech output technologies for children with developmental disabilities. Additionally, several directions for future research are posited. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20468928.

Effects of a Systematic Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention Using a Speech-Generating Device on Multistep Requesting and Generic Small Talk for Children With Severe Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention using a speech-generating device (SGD) on acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of multistep requesting and generic small talk in three children with severe autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between the ages of 7 and 13 years. Method A multiple-baseline design across participants combined with a posttreatment multiple-generalization-probe design was used to assess acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of target communicative behaviors with the experimenter and the participants' familiar communication partners (FCPs). Intervention was composed of systematic instruction in the use of an SGD using least-to-most prompting, constant time delay, error correction, and reinforcement. Results Visual analysis established a strong functional relationship between the independent variable and the two dependent variables (i.e., requesting preferred activities, engaging in generic small talk) for all three participants. Effect size indicator analyses corroborated these findings, indicating strong effects for performing multistep requesting and medium effects for engaging in generic small talk. All participants were able to generalize the acquired communicative behaviors to request new and untrained snacks and activities and engage in generic small talk with FCPs who were not part of the training. Maintenance of acquired communicative behaviors was demonstrated 3 weeks post completion of intervention. Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence that AAC intervention using an SGD and incorporating least-to-most prompting, constant time delay, error correction, and reinforcement is effective in terms of multistep requesting and generic small talk behaviors in children with severe ASD. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16663630.