24 / 60
70
JCPSLP
Volume 18, Number 2 2016
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
(41; 47%), followed by commercial sites (21; 24%) and sites
offering implementation guidance and resources (19; 22%).
Site purpose varied greatly for diagnosis-specific
searches. The majority of AAC-relevant sites from the
aphasia communication
search offered guidance around
implementation (9 of the 11 sites), typically listing AAC
strategies such as picture symbols, gesture, and drawing
among other communication partner strategies. AAC-
relevant sites for autism spectrum disorder and cerebral
palsy mostly offered information on available products
or techniques (9/11 and 8/15 respectively), for example
picture-exchange based communication systems,
communication apps, and assistive technology. Table
4 contains a breakdown of the purpose data for each
keyword category.
Characteristics of information sites
Additional analyses were performed on all sites coded as
P/T (product or technique overviews, such as non-
commercial information on available AAC products), G/R
(AAC implementation guidance, home practice ideas,
communication partner strategies, and resource
repositories), and OPN (opinion pieces or news sites). The
majority of information on these sites was generic, although
23% specified an age-group (adult, child, or both).
Location data were analysed for pages dealing with
services or sales, to determine their specific relevance to
Australian consumers. Eighteen (26%) of sites offering
purchase options were based in Australia, and five (42%)
of sites describing AAC services (e.g., therapy centres,
groups, or training) were also Australian-based. In total,
37% of service or commercial sites were based overseas,
and irrelevant for Australian consumers.
Site purpose
The search terms were divided into three categories:
generic, technique-specific, and diagnosis-specific (see
Table 3 for groupings). We then examined the purpose
distributions for each search category (see Figure 1).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, commercial pages such as
manufacturer and distributor sites dominated the
technique-specific category (41%). In addition, technique-
specific terms produced 30 overviews of products or
techniques (27%), and ten opinion or news articles for a
mainstream audience (9%), mostly concerning facilitated
communication. The product-specific searches produced
only four sites providing implementation guidance (4% of all
relevant results), mostly consisting of device manuals.
Conversely, pages resulting from the generic AAC searches
were populated largely by product and technique overviews
Table 3. Website viability and relevance to AAC
Total websites
300 (100%)
Total viable sites
291 (97%)
Search terms
Website relevance to AAC
Mostly
Somewhat
Not at all
Total relevant (%)
Generic terms
AAC
8
1
11
45
communication app
7
1
12
40
augmentative communication
20
0
0
100
communication board
20
0
0
100
communication devices
11
0
9
55
augmentative communication device
19
0
0
100
Technique-specific terms
facilitated communication
18
2
0
100
picture exchange communication system
18
0
0
100
tech talk communication device
19
0
1
95
go talk communication device
19
0
1
95
dynavox communication device
18
1
0
100
springboard communication device
17
0
0
100
tech talk communication device
19
0
1
95
Diagnosis-specific terms
aphasia communication
1
10
9
55
autism communication
3
7
9
53
cerebral palsy communication
5
10
3
83