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The aim of this study is to explore short‐term outcomes of communication aid provision from the perspective of children with complex communication needs.

A total of ten children were interviewed at two time points. The first interviews took place before or within two weeks of the arrival of a new communication aid. A second follow‐up interview was carried out between six and ten weeks later. Initial interviews explored children's views concerning their ability to engage in school activities that they deemed important but difficult to achieve. First interviews also examined children's self‐perceptions related to their self‐efficacy and self‐esteem, and perceptions of others' attitudes towards themselves. Children's views concerning the likely impact of the new communication aid on taking part in activities and their self‐concepts were also explored. The follow‐up interviews asked children to reflect on the short‐term impact of the new communication aid.

Children reported expected and unexpected positive changes at follow‐up. Notably, unanticipated and undesirable changes were also reported.

The paper addresses the critical issue of early outcomes following communication aid provision from the viewpoint of children themselves.

Some children with severe speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) can make use of assistive communication technology (ACT) to support and augment their speaking and writing. Different stakeholders may place emphasis on specific areas for ACT use, and this paper, therefore, proposes a framework for discussing and clarifying these varied expectations, using the ICF/ICF‐CY domains as a basis.

The authors discuss how the goal of increased participation for children helps all involved to keep in mind that, despite varying focuses for the use of ACT, it is the move towards increased involvement in life situations that will best drive our joint decisions and target‐setting.

Multi‐functional PC devices can support a range of communicative functions, including “chat”, curriculum support, play and leisure. Provision and use of ACT can, in consequence, have different focuses for different stakeholders (child, family, health and education staff), which can lead to disparate expectations around implementation of such technology.

A framework is proposed in this paper for an approach that hopes to offer a common understanding from which to discuss potential applications for ACT. This approach encourages equal value or weighting to each of the supports for inclusion and, therefore, encourages stakeholders to value their own priorities whilst considering others'.

In this paper, the accessibility of e‐learning environments designed for deaf learners is discussed. Starting from a discussion of the meaning of text and web accessibility, the paper describes the development of a Deaf‐centered E‐Learning Environment (DELE) which focusing on utilizing the visual skills of the target users. This work is conducted under the auspices of the Italian FIRB‐VISEL project (E‐Learning, Deafness, Written Language: A Bridge of Letters and Signs Towards Knowledge Society) which involves the development of a distance learning environment aimed at improving the literacy skills of prelingual deaf children and young adults.

The e‐learning environment is based on embodied cognition/semantics, imitation, storytelling, and the construction of educational games. Conceptual metaphors provide the browsing structure of the entire environment, in which the learning paths are developed.

DELE is currently undergoing testing in which end‐users are providing feedback about their use of the system.

The authors think that DELE could positively affect the didactic methodology used with deaf young people, through a new visual‐based approach to teaching.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time in which such a theoretical approach has been applied to an e‐learning environment for deaf users.

Working memory (WM) is a key component of effective and efficient communication in typical communicators, with, potentially, even greater significance for those who benefit from augmentative communication. This study aims to explore the emergence of WM strategies in children with complex communication needs who may be reliant on aided communication strategies.

A quasi‐experimental repeated measures, multi‐factorial research design, comparing 30 children with complex communication needs (CCN) aged three to six years and 30 age‐matched typically developing peers. Picture stimuli representing verbs and adjectives in three categories: control words, long words and phonologically similar words are presented visually or silently in sequences of increasing length to establish each participant's memory span.

Articulatory rehearsal does not appear to be used as a memory strategy with verb material. With adjective material, there is limited evidence of emerging articulatory rehearsal at age six. Input modality does not influence rehearsal of either verbs or adjectives.

The study is small scale and exploratory, but there are suggestions that both groups of participants handle verb and adjective material differently to noun material.

Emerging WM skill in children with CCN needs to be considered in relation to the use of speech generating technology.

This paper contributes to understanding of the development and potential influence of WM in efficient aided communication.

Story‐telling is recognised as important to child language development. However, children who use electronic communication aids have limited opportunities to develop their story‐telling compared to their natural speaking (NS) peers. The “Telling Stories”' project aims to explore narrative construction in teaching staff‐aided communicator dyads.

A pilot study was conducted to examine the feasibility of research methods. Video data were captured during a fictional story‐telling task. Two measures were investigated: communicative modality; and linguistic move type. Momentary time sampling (MTS) was applied to the video to determine range and proportions of communicative modalities in use. A coding framework was applied to determine the distribution of linguistic move‐types across the interlocutors.

The findings revealed multimodal contributions from both interlocutors. The linguistic move‐type coding indicates the NS assumed a more dominant, initiating role. MTS was shown to be an appropriate methodology for this research.

The pilot provides provisional data regarding narrative constructions of an aided speaker and tests the efficacy of the MTS methodology prior to the full study. Refinements to the protocol to be used in the main study are reported. The main study aims to provide detailed analysis of the narrative constructions of aided speakers, currently an area with little existing research.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the journey of a young person with severe and complex communication needs from no formal expressive communication system, to a point where he is motivated and able to use a text based voice output communication aid for a range of communication functions, in a variety of settings, and with a range of communication partners.

The paper is a descriptive single case study, documenting long‐term changes in speech, language, and communication needs and use, and discontinuation of use, of range of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) tools.

The paper describes the different AAC interventions and their success or otherwise in supporting the young person. It also describes key educational and therapeutic aspects of his management. Changes in the young person's interaction, language and literacy skills, and how his family and the professionals around him perceived the changes in his communication are highlighted.

The paper is a description of one person without a known underlying diagnosis of his severe and complex communication impairment and might, therefore, be of restricted use when generalized.

There are few published longitudinal descriptions concerning how, why, and when young people use or discard AAC tools. This paper highlights the multiple and various factors of the factors that can be at work when actually providing intervention.

This paper aims to examine interaction patterns in two activities at home and one activity at school when a seven‐year‐old boy with autism and learning disabilities was supplied with a speech‐generating device (SGD).

Activity‐based communication analysis (ACA) was used as the basis for analysing and discussing of communicative behaviours in video recordings made before and during SGD intervention. The coded communicative behaviours were engagement in activity, role in turn‐taking and communicative form, function and effectiveness. Conversational topics were also analysed.

Activity characteristics seemed important for the outcome. In the two more structured activities (story reading at home and morning circle at school), the child could use the SGD to communicate more effectively within the given frames. During mealtime at home, topic length increased and the instruction to the parents to also use the SGD resulted in positive changes in this activity. ACA highlighted some important issues related to SGD intervention, such as use for expression of communicative needs and access to suitable vocabulary. There also seems to be a need for more guidance to communication partners with respect to the use of communicative strategies to support communication and machine‐mediated interaction.

Research of the effects of augmentative and alternative communication techniques used in natural interaction is almost non‐existent. This case study, therefore, is an important contribution to the field and provides some insights into the challenge of using an electronic device in natural interaction.