Publication Date

Spring 5-6-2023

Document Type

Student Project

First Advisor

Andzik, Natalie

Degree Name

B.S. (Bachelor of Science)

Department

Department of Special and Early Education| School of Allied Health and Communicative Disorders

Abstract

Purpose: Individuals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who use Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) are often offered English-only AAC systems that do not meet their language needs. Devices that host multiple languages often only offer one at a time.

Method: The authors reviewed the literature by searching relevant databases using a variety of search strings. Following our inclusionary and exclusionary criteria, 15 articles were yielded for analysis.

Results: Authors found that more than half of the included articles were discussion-based papers on AAC delivery, barriers to AAC and multilingualism, and codeswitching using AAC. The included interview studies aimed to summarize the perceptions on AAC services—their impact, facilitating and limiting factors in communication, and the importance or relevance of using an AAC device. Only two intervention studies were included, and those authors investigated expressive language production based on the effects of aided AAC modeling between two languages in bilingual children, and bilingual children’s ability to differentiate between two languages on an aided AAC device.

Conclusions: Practitioners have an obligation to support multilingual clients who use AAC across all languages they speak at school, at home, and in the community. Much of the literature supports encouraging multiple languages, but limited access to bilingual AAC systems are available. There is also a dire need for empirically based studies and more perspectives by way of interviews or surveys.

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