This study examined the use of eye-gaze for joint attention by an 8-year-old student with autism spectrum disorder and limited speech while interacting with a parent and adult tutors at various technology-based activity centers (i.e., symbol matching station, dance mat station, LEGO building station), using both quantitative and microanalytic analysis. The student’s use of eye gaze was situation and context dependent. At the symbol matching station, the student was successful at playing the games and thus his orientation was often elsewhere; he used eye gaze at communication partners’ faces or gaze shifts from the technology to faces following successful task completion in order to signal adult feedback and praise, or to observe surroundings while waiting for the next item. At the LEGO building station, the student and communication partner sat side-by-side in a co-operative activity that required adult support; After a task was completed, the student gazed toward the communication partners’ body or action to signal help in initiating the next task, and the student gazed toward an object/direction referenced in response to an adult bid. The dance activity station included challenges with the technology as well as the motoric activities; following technology difficulties, the student used gaze shifts between the communication partners’ face and an object to signal a request for help, or he would orient to the communication partners’ face after engaging in acts that showed resistance to participation.

This study examined the multiple, multimodal social actions and practices that were required in order to mobilize SGD-mediated responses by two students with multiple disabilities who are beginning communicators while engaging with their occupational therapist or speech and language pathologist. The 18-year-old student had cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability and the 10-year-old had cerebral palsy and suspected developmental delay. The communication partners used a combination of gaze orientation, deictic pointing, and gestures in order to make an SGD-mediated response relevant, and if students oriented to their device, the adults treated them as pre-beginnings with small pauses, verbal encouragement and nodding. The deictic gestures served as visual attention-getting prompts, demonstrations of how to navigate within the device to reach relevant vocabulary, and demonstrations of how to use individual symbols. At the beginning of the interaction sequences the speaking partner constructed a recipient-tilted epistemic asymmetry and then shifted to using stronger deontic constructions paired with friendly prosodic features in order to mobilize an SGD-mediated response. The speaking partners used prosodic features of stress and high pitch to convey a sense of urgency, and they used a quieter volume during deontic constructions in an effort to soften the pressure. Additionally speaking partners shifted their use of linguistic resources from interrogatives and multi-unit questions to imperatives that specified an SGD-mediated response as the preferred response. In both excerpts, the student’s SGD-mediated response did not align with the preceding deontic construction, but the speaking partners treated the responses as relevant to the overall interaction.

This study investigated the organization of multiparty classroom interaction that included one 14-year-old student with physical and intellectual disabilities due to cerebral palsy who uses an eye-gaze accessed SGD. The teacher used display questions and explicit naming combined with gaze direction to create an interactional space for an SGD-mediated response in a sequentially recognizable position. A facilitator with visual access to the screen supported SGD-mediated responses through the use of locally contingent verbal and embodied cues (e.g., indexical spoken turns, deictic gestures, response particles, verbal and embodied clues) that supported the student’s symbol selection in response to a known answer question while preserving the interactional space through making the process public. When competing responses from classmates occurred, the teacher created a local participation framework by attuning her voice (i.e., whispering, practicing smiley voice, laughter, increased speed, decreased volume) that softened the corrective action while negotiating agreement to not interrupt during the SGD turn construction. In situations when the needed vocabulary for answering a question was not accessible, the student did not immediately display recipiency.

This study described the sequential and multimodal methods used in teaching communication aid use to a 10-year-old girl with multiple disabilities (i.e., severe speech and physical impairment, anarthria, moderate intellectual disability, cerebral palsy), by her speech and language therapist while her grandparents were present. The therapist created interactional slots for the student to participate using a multimodal methods that included linguistic resources (e.g., alternative question, wh-questions, completion of non-finished clauses, aided language input) and multimodal resources (e.g., attention-getting speech, deictic gestures, preventative repair – positioning student’s hand over the preferred field such as nouns or verbs, modeling symbol indications with aided language input, hand-over-hand simulated symbol indications using the child’s own fist). The student took up the next action by indicating a symbol, which may or may not have been intentional. Before continuing the next social action, the therapist waited for the student to confirm the accuracy of her voicing or attributed meaning of the student’s symbol indications, which the student provided by lifting her head, smiling and lifting her head, or vocalizing and lifting her head.

This study investigated the use of arm/hand movement and gaze direction for creating mutual understanding between a girl aged 10;4 years with severe speech, physical impairment and moderate intellectual disability due to cerebral palsy while engaging with the adults in her home and school environments. When positioned as a second pair part, meaning was created in a social act of pointing as the girl indexed a target in her environment by coordinating her use of gaze and arm movement. In the first pair part position, the girl was successful in accomplishing the social act of wanting, through her persistent and upgrading use of multimodal resources (i.e., vocalizations, arm movements, and gaze direction), in both the absence and presence of competing agendas of her communication partner. The communication partner ascribed meaning to these coordinated moves and the girl discontinued the coordination of embodied resources in the interaction at points which suggested the goals were reached.

This study examined how turns are designed between a mother and her 8-year-old child with cerebral palsy and additional disabilities (i.e., seizure disorder, strabismus, nystagmus, unknown level of cognitive functioning due to inconclusive testing). The child uses a tablet form of AAC that she cannot independently access. In the interaction, the mother first invited the child to make an open choice, but little time was provided and the child did not respond. The mother quickly shaped the interaction into a choosing activity that included four preferred responses on the device. The child used embodied resources to provide a response external to the AAC device, but the mother did not treat this response as relevant or meaningful. Instead, the mother designed slots for her daughter to participate with extended pauses following her initiations, and the child’s responses were interpreted as responses if they sequentially follow a suggested choice and were directed towards the AAC display. When the child did not confirm these interpretations, the mother narrowed the type of question and expected response, which resulted in a faster paced interaction as the child dismissed the proffered options.

This study examined the multiparty interaction in which a speech language therapist supported a 10-year-old girl with multiple disabilities (i.e., cerebral palsy, moderate intellectual disability) in asking a question with a communication board while her grandparents were present. The sequential organization included the following social actions: 1) establishing action, speaker, and recipient; 2) authoring the topic of the question; 3) summoning the recipient, asking the question, and answering; 4) commenting and assessing the answer. The speech and language therapist created either public or private participation frameworks (e.g., excluding grandparents from hearing the nature of the question) for each of the question-oriented tasks, designing slots for student participation using embodied resources or the communication board. Through an extended pre-sequence with a trajectory of actions, the communication partners used meta-interactive turns and embodied modeling (i.e., embody different key aspects of asking a question with different participation frameworks) to support the aided speaker’s selection of speakership (i.e., who is asking the question), recipiency (i.e., the person to be asked a question), topic, and action type (i.e., asking a question), and they were attentive and responsive to her embodied communication.

This study examined the use of verbal behavioral analysis strategies to elicit adult-preferred responses from students with autism aged 4 to 10 years who are beginning communicators, using an AAC app that allowed mirroring across devices. After a student initiated embodied communication to select a preferred item, the therapist used mand on the AAC device that resulted in the student using the correct symbol for the item. A second student repeated a message on his AAC device but since therapist set the device to a “one message delivered-one message heard” setting, the student was unable to engage in “electric echolalia”. In the final incident, the communication partner used a modeling prompt multiple times until it elicited a second pair part of imitation from the student.

This study examined a snack time interaction between a school staff member and a three-year-old student with ASD and Global Developmental Delay who is minimally verbal in a classroom where PECS and Makaton signing are used and encouraged. The student used a wide range of embodied communicative strategies to request a ‘dispreferred action’. Although his choice not to select a preferred action could have been interpreted as a refusal of his turn, the student’s use of intertwined modalities was effective in building mutual understanding. His multimodal competence comprised of modal complexity (gaze, vocalization, object manipulation, touch) and modal intensity (repetitions, extended holding of gesture).

This study examined how interactional troubles are addressed in conversations with three students with a variety of disabilities (e.g., ASD, ASD + ID, ID + autistic features), with and without complex communication needs (CCN), and their adult assistants or researchers. Students with ASD who do not have CCN were observed to use verbal resources to initiate repairs in understanding by accounting for their activities or repeating their contribution. During other interactional trouble, little time was provided for the student to respond to clarifications or alternate choices, leading the student to withdraw from the interaction. In interactions with a student with ASD and CCN, the adult successfully used sequential context to attribute repair initiations to both atypical (e.g., head scratching and visual search) and typical nonverbal actions (e.g., pointing and gazing at partner). However, in other instances, the sequential context appeared insufficient for the adult to interpret the nature of the difficulty due to the lack of specificity in the child’s repair initiation. While missing or overlooking a child’s request for assistance led to the child’s withdrawal from an interaction, adulty sensitivity and flexibility in interpreting nonverbal behaviors over multiple attempts was noted as successfully building mutual understanding.