The Effects of Text-based AAC Intervention on Letter-phoneme and Word Recognition for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Objectives: This study investigated the effect of text-based AAC intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods: In this study, text-based AAC intervention was conducted on 3 children with autism spectrum disorder aged 6 years and older who had limited verbal skills by applying a multiple probe baseline design across participants. Letter-phoneme and word recognition ability in the baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases were examined. Results: The result of this study showed that text-based AAC intervention had a positive effect on improving the letter-phoneme and word recognition ability of children with autism spectrum disorder. Conclusion: Text-based AAC intervention using various visual symbols had a positive effect on improving the early literacy skills of children with autism spectrum disorder. This study is meaningful in that it examines the possibility of expanding from graphic symbols to text symbols through the use of the textbased AAC intervention even though verbal skills are limited.