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This Conversation Analysis study investigated how a speech and language therapist (SLT) created opportunities for communication aid use in multiparty conversation. An SLT interacted with a child with multiple disabilities and her grandparents in a home setting, using a bliss board. The analyses demonstrated a practice where the SLT employed sequential and multimodal methods to open up interactional spaces for board use. The board was used within this space either by the child, or by the SLT. The space was then closed by the SLT's attentive checking for confirmation or rejection of the meaning of the board indication. The meaning-making processes were actively initiated, supported, and closed by the therapist, using a variety of linguistic and bodily methods such as questions, non-finished turns, indication modeling, and adjusting the board's position. The child confirmed or rejected the therapist's moves using board indications, vocalizations, gaze, head movements, and smiles. The analysed practice creates opportunities for teaching and possibly also for learning how to use a communication aid.

This Conversation Analysis study investigated how a speech and language therapist (SLT) created opportunities for communication aid use in multiparty conversation. An SLT interacted with a child with multiple disabilities and her grandparents in a home setting, using a bliss board. The analyses demonstrated a practice where the SLT employed sequential and multimodal methods to open up interactional spaces for board use. The board was used within this space either by the child, or by the SLT. The space was then closed by the SLT's attentive checking for confirmation or rejection of the meaning of the board indication. The meaning-making processes were actively initiated, supported, and closed by the therapist, using a variety of linguistic and bodily methods such as questions, non-finished turns, indication modeling, and adjusting the board's position. The child confirmed or rejected the therapist's moves using board indications, vocalizations, gaze, head movements, and smiles. The analysed practice creates opportunities for teaching and possibly also for learning how to use a communication aid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a conversation-analysis case study of interaction between a child with cerebral palsy and an adult using a computer-based voice output communication aid (VOCA) device with a touch-sensitive screen-input system. Data was collected from video recordings of everyday activities at school. The public nature of the VOCA-mediated turn construction process (hand movements towards the screen, on-screen folder navigation, synthetic speech) displays the projection of the turn under way and its possible continuations. The adult interlocutor orients to such projections when contributing to the topic of the ongoing turn and when initiating repair on its topical development. Contributing may activate the AAC user's further involvement in the ongoing turn, while repair may restrict the AAC user's influence on the topical progression. The findings are relevant for clinical assessment and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]