Comparative Study between Grid-Based and Visual Scene Display Based AAC Systems in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

Introduction Children with developmental disabilities experience a range of communication deficits. Early intervention for their communication deficits involves traditional speech therapy as well as use of augmentative and alternative communication devices (AAC). AAC systems use different formats for display. The current study aims to compare two such systems, Visual Scene Display (VSD) system and Grid-based AAC system. Need of the study Studies have shown efficacy of VSD systems over other display systems of AAC. However, there are limited studies done in the Indian context. There is also a paucity of such studies on children with Cerebral Palsy (CP), who are having communication disorders. The current study therefore aims to develop and determine the efficacy of VSD system over Grid-based AAC system in the Indian context. Method The study employed 6 children with Cerebral Palsy (CP), in the age range of 5-12 years. The children were divided into two groups. Group I was evaluated and trained using the Grid-based AAC system and Group II was tested and trained using the VSD system. The outcome measure used was identification accuracy for the pictures displayed on screen in terms of number of correctly identified images. Three categories of vocabulary (fruits, food items and furniture) were chosen for the study. Ten pictures for each category were finalized after validation. Results In the pre-training condition, there was no significant difference in the identification accuracy scores for Group II (assessed with VSD system) compared to Group I (assessed with Grid-based AAC system), for all three categories. The scores were higher for Group II comparatively. In the post-training condition, a significant difference was obtained in the scores for categories of fruits and food items. This difference could be attributed to the factors such as contextual cues, presence of familiar background embedded within Indian context in VSD system. However, no significant difference was observed for furniture category. Conclusion The current study indicates efficacy of VSD systems over Grid-based AAC systems for certain categories of vocabulary. Similar studies shall be conducted with a larger sample size and across children with other communication disorders to draw conclusive inferences regarding the efficacy of VSD systems.