Teletraining to Teach Communication Partners to Support Students With Multiple Disabilities Including Cortical Visual Impairment and Emerging Symbolic Communication in Communicating Choices.

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the impact of a teletraining to teach adult communication partners the "Communicating Choices-Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI)" strategy to support participation for students with multiple disabilities.

Method: A nonconcurrent, multiple-probe, across-participants design was implemented with four adult communication partner (i.e., speech-language pathologist, paraeducators, and parent) and student dyads to determine the effects of a teletraining administered over a video-calling platform on the partner's implementation of the substeps from the Communicating Choice-CVI strategy. Dyads completed a randomly predetermined number of baseline sessions, two teletraining sessions to instruct the partners in the strategy, and five intervention probes.

Results: Results of the study indicated that communication partners successfully implemented an increased number of the strategy substeps following two short teletraining sessions and that all students communicated choices in every opportunity when they were provided with a structured opportunity. Communication partners reported that the strategy was successful for the students and that the strategy could be applied to other contexts or students.

Conclusions: This study provides evidence for the importance of communication partner training for students with complex needs in domains such as vision and communication. Furthermore, the Communicating Choices-CVI strategy may lead to increased opportunities for academic participation, social engagement, and self-determination for students whose opportunities to take on active roles in educational settings are often severely restricted.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28108139.