The focus of this session will be on aided enhanced milieu teaching (AEMT) as an approach to support autistic children to expand their symbolic communication skills.

Autistic children present with a range of communication profiles, strengths, and needs, but a commonly observed pattern is a focus on imperative (e.g., requests) rather than declarative (e.g., comments) communication functions. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) intervention literature for autistic children has often focused on communication strengths, such as requests. Although requesting serves an important role in empowering children to make decisions that affect their life, a range of communication functions are needed to interact meaningfully with others.

There is growing evidence that autistic children who are nonspeaking can use AAC to express varied communication functions, however, related intervention approaches have often been highly structured and decontextualised. AEMT was developed as a method to support autistic children’s communication during typical activities within familiar environments. The approach combines evidence-based teaching strategies with aided AAC. During AEMT, the environment is arranged to promote communication opportunities, and the communication partner interacts with the child in ways to facilitate language growth. Within the intervention, children are supported to express their ideas using aided AAC.

AEMT has been trialed with 3 children who participated in an experimental single case design study. Findings indicated that all children increased their symbolic communication from baseline, indicating clinical significance, and for two of the three participants the increases were statistically significant. The study provides emerging evidence that AEMT can be used to support autistic children to express a variety of communication functions using a systematic approach implemented across different activities. This session will focus on clinical applications of this research, such as considering the individual profile of children in planning intervention and personalising goals based on child interests and strengths.

Key messages that attendees will take away:
1. AEMT can be used to facilitate development of both symbolic communication and varied communication functions for autistic children, and is an intervention deemed socially valid by caregivers.
2. Following a child’s lead and providing access to a broader range of symbols supports autistic children to communicate messages that reflect their interests- which may be different to therapy targets. By developing symbolic communication in this way, increased opportunities for adult-child interactions are afforded, facilitating the transactional process needed for language growth.
3. Intervention should be tailored to the individual needs of the autistic child, which may vary between sessions.

Background: A meta-analysis completed by O’Neill et al. (2018) concluded “it may be beneficial to provide aided AAC input at a rate of more than one (model) per minute”. This is a substantial amount of modelling required per day to support the learning of an AAC user. In addition to this, Australian classrooms are striving to be more inclusive with less withdrawal time and less expectation on teacher-aides or educational assistants providing 1:1 support to students. In order to meet this need, schools and teachers need structured support to deliver differentiated teaching while modelling AAC in a practical and sustainable way.

Aim(s): To increase teacher’s modelled utterances with AAC or aided language displays (ALDs) during a regular whole class lesson.
Method: The eight-step communication partner instructional model was implemented in a state school as a preliminary trial. Three teachers who had two or more AAC users or students with complex communication needs (CCN) in their classroom participated in the approach. Pre and post data was collected regarding the percentage of utterances modelled during a lesson. A post survey was also used to gather teacher feedback.

Results: All teachers made significant progress, increasing their percentage of modelled utterances. Post survey feedback from teachers indicated many other additional benefits, not just for the AAC user but for the whole class. They felt it supported all students with their communication, vocabulary, comprehension and engagement.

Conclusion: The eight-step instructional model has previously proven its effectiveness with parents, educational assistants, small groups and in 1:1 scenarios. This preliminary data has demonstrated its effectiveness for teachers to model AAC during whole class teaching (1:20+ students), increasing the number of aided models AAC learners need. Having teacher’s model and include AAC in their teaching has also supported peer exposure, encouragement and connection with CCN students.

1. What is the eight-step communication partner instructional model
2. How the eight-step model can be applied
3. How communication partners can build skills through explicit support in order to build connection with students