Each year, the TASH Conference brings together our constituents to share resources and success stories, learn about field-driven best practices, and network within a community engaged in shared values. The Conference is attended by passionate leaders, experts, and advocates from every corner of the disability community. Conference attendees are influential in their fields and communities, and play an important role in the provision of services and supports for the millions of individuals and organizations around the world; and include professors and researchers from leading institutions; those involved in local, state, and federal governments and public policy; special and general educators, and school administrators; self-advocates, adult service providers; students, family members, and many others. This year’s conference theme, Building Diverse and Inclusive Communities, reminds us that equity, opportunity, and inclusion relies on the input of broad perspectives and experiences.
In social interaction, exclusion arises when conditions are provided that certain children do not have the capability to meet. Such excluding communication situations pose problems for an increasing amount of children with complex communication needs and severe disabilities (Brady, Snell, & McLean, 2016). It is generally recognised that more effective communication interventions are needed to preserve their right to communicate. In the development of pre-symbolic communication, the concept of communicative intentionality has attained central place (Camaioni, 2017). Due to intentional communication skills like requesting a desired object or expressing personal preferences, the child identifies a relation between his communicative acts and the communicative reaction of his social environment in its daily interactions (Burgoon, Guerrero, & Floyd, 2016). A thorough investigation of communication interventions is important first step to support children with severe disabilities in the development of intentional communication. In daily life, the realisation of these interventions requires specific pedagogical conditions of intervention and support (e.g. participation of the parents). In our study we aim to evaluate these pedagogical conditions of the development of intentional communication of children with severe disabilities. Within our Reflexive Grounded Theory Methodology (Breuer, Muckel & Dieris, 2018) framework, we combine expert interviews (1), a systematic review of interventions (2) and an observational study (3) in three survey cycles. To determine these conditions, we will ask 21 experts in the field of intentional communication (e.g. speech therapists), how an ideal pedagogical intentional communication intervention for children with severe disabilities should be designed. Results of the first survey cycle show that the experts relied more on proximal interventions (e.g. expressions and gestures) than on the use of digital AAC devices to promote intentional communication. Citing Literature: Brady, N., Snell, M. E., & McLean, L. (2016). What Is the State of the Evidence? In R. A. Sevcik & M. A. Romski (Eds.), Communication Interventions for Individuals with Severe Disabilities. Exploring Research Challenges and Opportunities (S. 3-14). s.l.: Brookes Publishing. Burgoon, J. K., Guerrero, L. K., & Floyd, K. (2016). Nonverbal communication (2. Auflage). New York: Routledge. Camaioni, L. (2017). The development of intentional communication: a re-analysis. In J. Nadel & L. Camaioni (Eds.), Psychology Library Editions: v.8. New Perspectives in Early Communicative Development (1st ed., S. 82-96). Milton: Taylor and Francis. Breuer, F., Muckel, P., & Dieris, B. (2018). Reflexive Grounded Theory: Eine Einführung für die Forschungspraxis (3., vollständig überarbeitete und erweiterte Auflage). Lehrbuch. Wiesbaden: Springer. Retrieved from http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:1111-201705064549.