Conversation books for improving social interaction and social acceptance of children with complex communication needs in India

Introduction: This study draws on data from a community-based participatory action research project conducted to develop and evaluate a communication partner training program for supporting parents of children with complex communication needs in South India. Method: The article focuses on one participant with cerebral palsy and his mother. The participant child’s communicative participation and social interaction opportunities were enriched using a conversation book co-constructed by him, his mother, and the trainer-researcher speech-language pathologist during the training program. Data were collected throughout the action research project, including interviews, group meetings, observations, and a trainer-researcher journal. Results and discussion: Applied thematic analysis was employed to analyze the longitudinal data, in order to highlight the changes in the participant child’s social interaction and communicative participation. By describing the process of developing the conversation book as a means of increasing communication and social interaction opportunities for the child, our data illustrate how personalized low-tech augmentative and alternative communication options can be a way to improve social participation for children with disabilities in culturally diverse and low resource contexts, where stigma toward disability provides significant obstacles to social inclusion.