AMANDA HYNAN FINAL THESIS PDF

used AAC. The most notable difference in the telecommunications condition was
how the person who used AAC used a greater variety of utterance types including
‘wh’ questions. In the face-to-face condition more statements were used by both
parties with the person who used AAC using the same strategy noted by Bloch (2011)
of initiating a topic via a statement and then waiting for the communication partner to
guess. Using telecommunications meant the person who used AAC had to produce
complete message forms which Gandell and Sutton suggest may support the
development of literacy and language skills.
It must be remembered that misunderstandings and communication breakdown can
still occur through the exchange of electronic messages especially due to the lack of
non-verbal communication cues which can make expressing emotions, especially
sarcasm, problematic and also increase the risk of ‘flaming’ where arguments, abuse,
harassment, or slander flare up either intentionally or due to misunderstandings (Mann
& Stewart, 2000).
2.2.6. Time considerations within AAC-mediated face-to-face
conversations
Murray and Goldbart (2009) also emphasize another important conversational
strategy is to give the person using AAC additional time. Typical conversational
speaking rates vary between 150-250 words per minute (Goldman-Eisler, 1986, cited
by Beukelman & Mirenda, 2005). Measuring rates for people who use AAC is
dependent on a multitude of personal and technical equipment factors but speeds of
between 2-15 words per minute are average (Higginbotham, Shane, Russell & Caves,
2007). Extended time lapses between turns are a defining aspect of AAC-mediated
conversations. Todman, Alm, Higginbotham and File (2008) say perceptions of
people who use AAC often focus negatively on their slow rates of communication,
and opportunities to tell stories or talk about things that are important are often denied
within fast-moving interactions. Many research areas within the field of AAC focus
on speeding up conversational rate (Todman et al. 2008).
Mathias, Sutherland and McAuliffe (2010) investigated the effect of pause time in
conversations with young people who use AAC and reported typically speaking
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