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Asking questions is essential for learning and socialisation. However, students with intellectual disability who have severe speech and language disorder (i.e. aided-speaking students) seldom get the opportunity to ask questions in teacher-fronted classrooms. Out of 22 consulted school leaders in the Swedish special school for children with an intellectual disability, six school leaders agreed to let their 82 teachers and classroom assistants participate in a 4-hour-long Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM) workshop about aided-speaking students' questions. The objective of this study was to investigate the underlying conditions of the significantly increased self-efficacy pre-post the intervention. Panel and group discussions were transcribed and analysed. Results showed that the two key actions (i.e. supportive leadership and empowered teachers) fostering collective teacher efficacy were acknowledged. The six school leaders created space for embedded reflective talk and displayed beliefs in teachers' as well as classroom assistants' abilities suggesting empowerment of classroom teams. The CA-based findings used in the workshop elicited reflective talk. For example, vicarious experiences (presented in anecdotes) worked to transfer CA findings in the workshop to participants own teaching practices. The findings have implications for communication skills training targeting teachers and classroom assistants working with aided-speaking students.

This study investigates the effect of communication skills training concerning aided-speaking students' questions in classroom interaction. Eighty-two Swedish teachers and classroom assistants working with students using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) participated. The study was based on the Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM) and implemented as a pre-post intervention design. The results show significant change on self-efficacy but not on interactional awareness. Level of education in combination with firsthand contact with students was significant. The correlation between self-efficacy and interactional awareness indicated interdependency. The study highlights how AAC topics can be included in teacher education and communication skills training for professionals.

Using the framework of conversation analysis, this paper examines aided-speaking students’ unsolicited speech-generating device(SGD)-mediated questions in teacher-fronted classroom talk. The analysis draws on a corpus of 18 h of video-recorded classroom interactions including 23 aided-speaking students using SGDs or picture-based communication boards. In all, 5% of the students’contributions were unsolicited questions, produced by three students.The students were found to orient to turn transition relevance places, but due to prolonged production time their questions risked sequential and topical misplacement in the ongoing classroomtalk and were vulnerable to misunderstandings. To address this problem, students activated the synthetic voice before finalising the question, claiming the interactional floor while securingtime to complete their utterance. They also refrained from activating the synthetic voice and instead made the question visually available for the teacher to read, thereby transferring the responsibilityfor answering the question to the teacher when sequentially and topically relevant. The study demonstrates the complex interactional process of formulating SGD-mediated questions, sometimes requiring that the teacher, assistants, and students engage in repair work and scaffolding to establish the meaning of a student’s utterance. The findings imply that the treatment of non-speaking students’ contributions as questions requires designated teacher work.

Since 2016, separated parents in Sweden are expected to pay child maintenance directly to each other unless special reasons, such as intimate partner violence (IPV), can be invoked. Problems with maintenance payments, which may involve expressions of financial abuse, have become a common topic in interactions between parents and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) that handles these cases.

This article examines 132 phone calls to the SSIA and the results show that payment problems are typically framed as relating to inability or negligence, and not as possible indications of abuse. This highlights the need for training and capacity building regarding IPV in the Swedish welfare state.

This study examines the displayed communicative competence and agency of a non-speaking student at a compulsory school for children with severe learning disabilities. The use of two different speech-generating devices (a single-message versus a multi-message speech-generating device) and the assignment of participation role (having the role of 'student' or 'teacher') were compared in two morning meetings. The two interactional sequences 'question-answers' and 'repair actions' were chosen because they provide participants with opportunities to display communicative competence and agency. The analysis showed that the displayed communicative competence and agency of the non-speaking student differed in relation to the kind of speech-generating device and the associated participatory role. Furthermore, the displayed communicative competence and agency was a product of the close collaboration between the student and the assistant and teachers who scaffolded the process. The study shows that teachers and assistants can influence the communicative competence and agency of non-speaking students.

Purpose of ReviewAided AAC modeling is an umbrella term for when communication partners model language on an aided AAC system to support an individual’s comprehension and/or communication development. This scoping review aims to provide an overview of aided AAC modeling studies targeting individuals with emergent communication and describing features and findings from these studies.

Recent FindingsResearch on interventions that includes aided AAC modeling is growing. Recent studies cover interventions for individuals that previously were excluded, such as individuals who use alternative access methods to select symbols.

SummaryA search yielded 29 studies that encompassed a total of 237 participants using emergent communication. Positive outcomes from the aided AAC modeling interventions were reported in the majority of the studies. In future research, a clear description of the different components of the interventions and their expected effect on the outcome may assist in comparing the effect of different types of aided AAC modeling interventions.

This study examines recent changes in Swedish regulations for child maintenance in relation to post-separation families with experiences of either intimate partner violence (IPV) or conflict. The reform limited the possibility to rely on the state for maintenance in cases of cooperation difficulties. For IPV cases, the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) can function as an intermediary between parents, but such exceptions are made upon assessment and require disclosure of IPV. This study investigates consequences of the maintenance reform and the ways in which it may re-actualize conflict and IPV between separated parents. Data consist of 649 recorded phone calls (~ 55 h) to the SSIA concerning maintenance. Disclosures of post-separation conflict or IPV were found in 132 of these calls; these calls were analyzed using thematic analysis. The maintenance reform’s requirement to reinstate contact with a former partner can re-actualize experiences of parental conflict as well as IPV by (a) re-surfacing physical or psychological abuse; (b) continued or accelerated cooperative difficulties; (c) renewed financial control; and (d) ‘paper abuse’ and new possibilities to display diligence or exert camouflaged control. This can take the form of explicit acts of abuse, anxiety or concern caused by the renewed contact, or being forced to deal with difficult memories. We argue that the Swedish maintenance reform ignores the reality of parental conflicts and IPV by re-actualizing such experiences in a range of ways.

Separated parents in Sweden need to sort out child maintenance themselves unless there are 'special reasons', such as experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV), in which case the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA) may function as an intermediary. In such cases, the parent must disclose their experiences for institutional assessment. This study uses conversation analysis (CA) to examine 132 phone calls between parents and SSIA officers, examining how parental conflict and possible violence is brought up and responded to. The analysis shows how parents describe cooperative problems in non-specific terms, incrementally adding information that makes possible violence inferentially available, rendering it difficult for case officers to distinguish IPV from post-separation conflicts. Case officers typically respond minimally and do not encourage further tellings, which means that IPV may go unnoticed. The study highlights the need for training in how to recognize possible IPV and how to facilitate such disclosures.

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 cause misunderstandings. Second, if the student is illiterate someone else has to choose and arrange the vocabulary (e.g. drawn pictures). Having a limited vocabulary increases the risk of producing ambiguous contributions. Against this backdrop, the results of our study are discussed in four parts: (1) the linguistic structure of the contributions, (2) the sequential organization of the contributions within ongoing classroom talk, (3) the contributions’ topical relation to other talk, and (4) their interactional functions. 

Relevance to Nordic educational research: The study examines non-speaking students’ unsolicited SGD-mediated questions in multiparty classroom talk, which is sparsely studied. The study illustrates teachers’ challenges in promoting inclusive education and social inclusion for non-speaking students at the expense of progression and advancement. Furthermore, it contributes knowledge of how teachers with non-speaking students in the classroom, manage several dilemmas as they make “here and now” pedagogical judgements on inclusive practices.

References:

Norbury et al (2016). The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: evidence from a population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57(11), 1247-1257. 

Tegler et al (2020). Creating a Response Space in Multiparty Classroom Settings for Students using Eye-gaze Accessed Speech-Generating Devices. Augmentative and alternative communication, 36(4), 203-213. 

Waring (2011). Learner initiatives and learning opportunities in the language classroom. Classroom discourse, 2(2), 201-218.