Teaching partner-focused questions to individuals who use augmentative andalternative communication to enhance their communicative competence

A single-subject, multiple-probe experimental design was used to investigat e the effect of instruction on the acquisition, generalization, and long-te rm maintenance of partner-focused questions (i.e., questions about communic ation partners and their experiences) by individuals who use augmentative a nd alternative communication (AAC). Six participants who had severe speech impairments and used AAC participated in the study; they ranged in age from 10 to 44 years, had a variety of disabilities, and used a range of AAC sys tems, instruction used a least-to-most prompting hierarchy in real-world in teractions and during simulations. All of the participants successfully lea rned to ask partner-focused questions spontaneously in social interactions; they required an average of approximately 6 hours of instruction (range: 3 -11 hours). The participants generalized the use of partner-focused questio ns to new situations in the natural environment and maintained use of partn er-Focused questions at least 2 months postinstruction; one participant req uired some "booster" instructional sessions 4 weeks postinstruction to main tain her long-term use of partner-focused questions. The participants all r eported high levels of satisfaction with the outcomes of the instructional program, as did their facilitators. Members of the general public, blind to the goals of the study, judged the majority of the participants to be more competent communicators after instruction.