Interventions Targeting Peer Interaction for Children Who Use Aided Augmentative and Alternative Communication: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Peer interaction is critical to child development, but children with complex communication needs often miss out on these opportunities to build social skills, communication skills, and friendships. In this systematic review, we identified experimental studies that tested interventions targeting peer interaction for school-age children who used or were learning to use aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). We identified 20 single-case design studies that implemented interventions to target peer interaction. Most studies utilized a combination of child-specific, peer-mediated, and environmental arrangement approaches. All studies reported positive effects for communication outcomes. Few studies reported frequency of communication by modality, but the results from those few studies suggest that promoting use of aided AAC systems might be more challenging than promoting overall communication. We offer recommendations for how practitioners can promote peer communication for children who use AAC, and for how researchers can work toward providing clearer evidence on promoting aided AAC.