ACQ Vol 11 no 2 2009

Literacy

Literacy instruction for individuals with complex communication needs Sally Clendon and Karen Erickson

This article outlines some of the key principles underlying effective literacy instruction for individuals with complex communication needs. These principles include: (a) the need for a comprehensive approach to instruction that addresses all of the constructs involved in literacy learning; (b) the need for direct intervention that focuses on an individual’s area of greatest need; (c) the need to address language and literacy simultaneously; and (d) the need to maintain high levels of cognitive engagement while offering repetition with variety. L iteracy skills are extremely important in today’s society and most would agree that being able to read and write effectively is essential for learning, personal development, and employment success. Perhaps there is no other group of individuals who highlight the power of literacy more compellingly than those with complex communication needs. These individuals are unable to use speech as their primary mode of communication and instead rely on the introduction of some form of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system. This may be an unaided system such as sign, a low-tech system such as a communication book or board, or a high-tech system such as a computerised AAC device. Whichever system is used, literacy skills are critical in AAC because until individuals with complex communication needs learn to spell conventionally, it is extremely difficult for them to communicate words or messages beyond those that are available to them in their AAC system (Clendon, 2006). Today computerised AAC devices have the capacity to store large amounts of vocabulary. Programming every possible word that an individual might need, however, is problematic as the vocabulary becomes difficult to organise, manage, and access (Erickson & Clendon, 2009). Instead, it is common practice for educators, speech pathologists, and parents to try and predict which words are sufficiently important to warrant inclusion. Unfortunately, despite their best intentions, the vocabulary words they select are often inappropriate for the individual’s personality, situation, and developmental profile (Carlson, 1981). In contrast, when individuals with complex communication needs develop conventional reading and writing skills, they are

no longer restricted to the vocabulary words that others deem important, and can achieve independence in their communication. This paper will discuss some of the key principles that need to be employed in order to assist these individuals to maximise their literacy potential and acquire the literacy skills needed to become effective in both face-to- face and written communication. Providing comprehensive literacy instruction Beginning literacy instructional programs must be comprehensive and address all of the constructs involved in reading and writing. Cunningham’s (1993) Whole-to-Part Model of Silent Reading Comprehension highlights the constructs that are believed to underlie successful silent reading comprehension and comprise comprehensive reading instruction. These constructs, as depicted in figure 1, are word identification, language comprehension, and print processing (see Cunningham, [1993], or Erickson, Koppenhaver, & Cunningham, [2006] for a detailed description of these constructs). Historically, literacy programs designed for individuals with developmental disabilities have tended to focus on only a few constructs. For many years, for example, there was a prevailing belief that individuals with developmental disabilities, particularly those with cognitive disabilities, could be taught to read sight words, but that they could not learn to decode words using phonics-based strategies. The literacy instruction that these individuals received tended to focus on whole-word recognition and limited attention was placed on the internal make-up of words. Consequently, they

This article has been peer- reviewed Keywords augmentative and alternative communica­ tion (AAC) complex communica­ tion needs literacy

Figure 1. A simplified view of Cunningham’s whole-to-part model

Sally Clendon (top) and Karen Erickson

Language comprehension

Silent reading

comprehension

Word identification

Print processing

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ACQ Volume 11, Number 2 2009

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