Teaching Letter Sound Correspondence to an Individual who uses Augmentative and Alternative Communication

Abstract

Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) often require adapted teaching methods to learn early literacy skills. The aim of my study was to teach letter-sound correspondence to an individual who uses AAC due to difficulties using spoken language. Letter-sound correspondence is the ability for someone to hear a sound and identify the letter that sound goes with. Letter-sound correspondence is one of the earliest skills required to develop literacy. In learning letter-sound correspondence, the groundwork is being laid for future success in reading. I utilized a single-subject changing criterion design, where the criterion for success changes as the individual shows improved performance. In this study, the criterion that would change was specific target letters. The participant attended two teaching sessions per week for 11 weeks. Despite high performance during scaffolded learning opportunities, the participant was unable to independently demonstrate mastery of the first target letter sound and therefore did not advance to learning additional letters. My poster will include a discussion of possible changes to intervention to increase success for this individual in the future.