Page 211 - Handbook of Electronic Assistive Technology

Chapter 7 • Alternative and Augmentative Communication 199

Strategic Competence

This relates to the use of compensatory or adaptive strategies to facilitate communication
within restrictions, e.g., the use of telegrammatic utterances to speed up turn taking (itself
a possible restriction in operational competence).

Communication Partners and Communicative Competence

As stated earlier, competence is an interpersonal construct that can vary across situations
and across communication partners. In practical terms this means that AAC assessment
and intervention should include significant others as well as the person who may wish
to use an AAC system. More than a decade after Light’s seminal work, she coedited with
Beukelman and Reichle a textbook entitled Communicative Competence for Individuals
Who Use AAC (Light et al., 2003b), where she elaborated on communicative competence
in AAC. Her model was extended with further consideration of psychosocial factors intrin-
sic to the person using AAC, such as motivation, attitude and confidence. One critique of
her work (Teachman and Gibson, 2014) suggests that Light’s model lacks explicit consid-
eration of communication partners or competencies at the group or dyad level. Such a
call has been identified by others (Granlund et al., 1995; Kagan, 1998) and is reflected in
more recent analytical work in which the actions of both the user of an AAC system and
their communication partners are considered on equal terms. This is applicable to both
children (Clarke et al., 2001, 2011, 2012) and adults (Bloch, 2011; Bloch and Clarke, 2013;
Bloch and Wilkinson, 2013).

Communicative Competence – Moving Forward

Teachman and Gibson’s (2014) review of communicative competence models in AAC pro-
vides a helpful summary of the different approaches to this area. In looking to the future
they draw attention to communicative participation and access to reduce marginalisa-
tion. One note of warning is the constant evolution of technology, which, while clearly a
strength in terms of interconnectivity and potential social access, may present challenges
such as a constant need to engage with new AAC systems and software.
In summary, models of communicative competence and their application to AAC have
provided an invaluable framework to support the understanding of AAC use in real life.
Their strength is that they attend to the person using an AAC system and what it is they
can do to communicate rather than simply invoking an idealised standard of what com-
munication must look like. The argument is that people who use AAC should be judged
on the overall success of their communication not on how well they compare to non-
AAC users. Such models have also incorporated communication partners although more
work is required to fully appreciate the integration of communication participants in any
communicative event. Finally, a communicative competence perspective places AAC use
within a wider social context. This allows us to consider social level enablers and barriers
as well as individual skills and abilities.