Community Collaboration For Children Learning to Use Voice Output Communication Aids

摘要

The acquisition of four VOCAs (Voice Output Communication Aids) to as many clients on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia, posed a dilemma - how not to end up with "in the cupboard" scenarios observed in the past. Adopted was Cumley and Beukelman's (1992) model, in which all facilitators participated in a facilitators meeting. Facilitators are people who have significant contact with VOCA users. They have been widely acknowledged in having a significant role to play in improving the communicative competency of the VOCA user. Facilitators are widely recognised. Research has found positive outcomes for the VOCA user when facilitators have been trained (Light 1992, Hunt 1991, Light 1988, McNaughton & Light 1989, Granlund 1995). Facilitators have been documented to be a successful part of the AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) goal setting team (McNaughton & Light 1989, Cumley & Beukelman 1992). Their involvement has been suggested as an efficient and effective way of reducing the cost of achieving communicative competency (Beukelman 1991). The expertise of facilitators is evident from their ability to determine the skill levels of the VOCA user (Granlund 1995), their successful role in vocabulary selection (Beukelman et al., 1991), and their acknowledgment of having a central role to the AAC knowledge base (Beukelman 1993). Angelo (1995) demonstrated that when families are involved in decision making and training, positive outcomes are achieved with their children. Jones, et al. (1992) and Mirenda (1992) also found excellent learning outcomes in VOCA users by adopting Cumley and Beukelman's model of working with facilitators (1992).