Considerations for the Provision of Services to Bilingual Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication

TLDR

AAC service providers are increasingly serving a significant number of clients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. This paper discusses considerations and future research needs for AAC strategies with bilingual children, focusing on scaffolding communication and language development across languages, selecting and customizing AAC systems, and advocating a sociocultural approach that supports both languages. The authors review key research on bilingualism in children with communication disabilities and propose a sociocultural AAC service model that supports both languages. They present implications of the sociocultural perspective and outline future research directions.

Abstract

Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) service providers are increasingly serving a significant number of clients from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. In this paper, we discuss general considerations and future research needs relevant to the use of AAC strategies and techniques with bilingual children, specifically, issues related to the scaffolding of communication and language development in more than one language, and the selection and customization of AAC systems for bilingual children. We do so by first reviewing key research on bilingualism with children with communication disabilities and its implications for research and practice in the AAC field. We propose the use of a sociocultural approach to AAC service delivery and argue for the support of both languages needed by the child to fully participate in his or her communicative environments. Implications of the sociocultural perspective and future research needs are also presented.