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aids. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools , 34 , 203–216. Mirenda, P., & Iacono, T. (Eds.) (2009). Autism spectrum disorders and AAC . Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing. Sigafoos, J., Green, V. A., Payne, D., Son, S. H., O’Reilly, M., & Lancioni, G. E. (2009). A comparison of picture exchange and speech generating devices: Acquisition, preference, and effects on social interaction. Augmentative and Alternative Communication , 25 , 99–109. Sigafoos, J., O’Reilly, M. F., Schlosser, R. W., & Lancioni, G. E. (2007). Communication intervention. In P. Sturmey & A. Fitzer (Eds.), Autism spectrum disorders: Applied behavior analysis, evidence, and practice (pp. 151–185). Austin, TX: Pro-Ed. Acknowledgements This project is supported by a grant from the Marsden Fund of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Jeff Sigafoos is a professor in the School of Educational Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He teaches in the area of special educational needs and undertakes research on augmentative and alternative communication for individuals with developmental disabilities. Dr Dean Sutherland is a senior lecturer in the Health Sciences Centre and College of Education at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. His teaching and research interests include autism spectrum disorder, deaf education, and the use of augmentative and alternative communication by children and adults with significant communication difficulties. Larah van der Meer , Debora Kagohara , and Donna Achmadi are doctoral students at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

% 100

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

49%

20% 20%

11%

SGD

Sign

PECS No Pref

Figure 2. Mean percentage of opportunities each communication method was selected (n = 17) communication method. This finding suggests that preference may influence how quickly children learn to communicate. We are undertaking further analyses to confirm any such relation between preference and speed of learning. It is important to note that these key findings are so far limited to the teaching of communicative requesting, which is generally considered a more basic communication skill. A second study to commence later in 2012 will extend the present comparisons to more socially oriented communication skills. In summary, these early data suggest that children with autism can learn to use a variety of AAC systems and that they are likely to indicate a preference for one mode of communication. However, it is not known how stable these preferences are over time or how these preferences may support the development of more complex communication. References Mirenda, P. (2003). Toward functional augmentative and alternative communication for students with autism: Manual signs, graphic symbols, and voice output communication

Correspondence to: Dean Sutherland, PhD Health Sciences Centre University of Canterbury Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand email: dean.sutherland@canterbury.ac.nz phone: +64 (0)3 3642987

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JCPSLP Volume 14, Number 2 2012

Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology