Literacy Interventions for Students with Physical and Developmental Disabilities Who Use Aided AAC Devices: A Systematic Review

This review evaluates research on literacy interventions for persons with physical and developmental disabilities who use aided augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Electronic database searches were completed to identify studies published between 1989 and 2009. Eighteen studies (n = 41 participants) were identified for inclusion in this review. Across studies a variety of instructional strategies were used to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, text comprehension, and participation in literacy activities. These strategies included direct instruction, scaffolding of communicative attempts, least-to-most prompting with time delay, writing workshop, and story mapping. The results of these studies indicated that systematic instruction including scaffolding, direct instruction, and least-to-most prompting with time delay may be the most effective strategies to teach literacy skills to this population. These results are discussed in relation to participant characteristics, the effectiveness of interventions, and the reported social validity of interventions. Suggestions for future research are discussed.