Unsolicited student-initiated speech-generating device mediated questions in teacher-fronted classroom talk

Being able to respond to and ask questions in teacher-fronted classroom talk is important for learning and assessment, as well as for student participation and social inclusion. About 8% of all students have a developmental language disorder and a subgroup even lack speech (Norbury et al., 2016). For those students, a speech-generating device (SGD) can be used to replace speech. SGDs provide students with enhanced opportunities to participate both in education and leisure time contexts. Despite the huge advantage that an SGD may offer, research shows that SGDs are seldom used in multiparty classroom talk. When they are used, a supportive environment is required, including for example teachers’ scaffolding practices (Tegler, Demmelmaier, Blom Johansson, & Norén, 2020). The aim of this study is to generate knowledge on interactional practices, organizations, and vocabulary that facilitate student-initiated (Waring, 2011) SGD-mediated questions in teacher-fronted classroom interaction. Specifically, we are interested in SGD-mediated student questions that are not preceded by an invitation or prompt from the teacher. The theoretical framework and methodology of ethnomethodological conversation analysis (EMCA) is used for detailed analysis of question design in multiparty interactions. Method: Data comprise of 18 hrs of video recordings of multiparty classroom lessons in nine special schools in Sweden. Twenty-three non-speaking students and their classmates, teachers and assistants participated in the study. Findings: The analysis shows that of the 233 SGD-mediated contributions that we identified in our data, 11 were student-initiated SGD-mediated questions. These questions were produced by three students. SGD-mediated interaction faces several challenges. First, the production time is prolonged compared to speech, which means that a contribution (e.g. an answer or a question) easily receives a sequentially misplaced position in the ongoing interaction, which may