ANALYZING THE COMMUNICATION ENVIRONMENT TO INCREASE FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION

Many students with severe and multiple disabilities demonstrate severe communication impairments. Efforts to improve communication in these students often embrace a ''natural environment'' or ''milieu'' approac h, embedding opportunities to communicate within natural, functional a ctivities across the entire schedule of daily activities. In reality, functional activities differ greatly in the degree to which they foste r communication. This article describes an environmental inventory des igned to allow a teacher ar speech-language pathologist ta analyze the extent to which a specific activity encourages functional communicati on for a particular student. The inventory may be used to compare diff erent activities across the student's day or to track the improvement of specific activities that initially may show little communicative va lue for the student. Reliability and validity data for the inventory a re presented along with a case study, of its use to monitor and guide improvements in a functional activity to increase communication by a y oung child with multiple disabilities.