Coconstructing in Conversations Using a Communication Book

Authors

  • Irina Savolainen University of Helsinki
  • Anu Klippi University of Helsinki
  • Kaisa Launonen University of Helsinki

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.36668

Keywords:

coconstruction, aided conversation, social action, interactional resources, multimodality, synchronization

Abstract

This study describes the multiple coconstruction process of aided utterances that occur when non-speaking people use a communication book in their everyday conversations. Previous studies have reported that coconstruction is present both in the progress of pointing-voicing pairs and in the negotiation of meanings. Adopting the concepts and the tools of multimodal conversation analysis, this study demonstrates how two non-speaking boys and their speech and language therapists utilized simultaneously six interactional resources that were interwoven in different multimodal practices during their coconstruction of aided utterances. The observations elicited by microanalysis provide an insight into the temporal, co-operative and progressive nature of conversations that are constructed with a communication book. The findings of this study are helpful for professionals in assessing and scaffolding aided communicators during their conversations with their significant communicative partners.

Author Biographies

  • Irina Savolainen, University of Helsinki

    Irina Savolainen is a speech and language therapist who has been working with non-speaking children and youths over 20 years. She has been involved in the development of communication books and technical communication devices in Finland. Now, she is a Ph.D. student at the University of Helsinki. The focus of her dissertation project is on the progress of aided conversations.

  • Anu Klippi, University of Helsinki

    Anu Klippi is an emerita professor of speech and language pathology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her main research interest is the study of impaired interaction and conversation from the viewpoint of speech and language therapy. She has studied how verbally impaired people communicate and interact in conversation. Her research focuses on multimodality and on multisemiotic systems in conversation, inter alia the interaction between speech and other semiotic systems such as nonverbal behaviour.

  • Kaisa Launonen, University of Helsinki

    Kaisa Launonen, PhD, is a speech and language therapist by her education. In her clinical work she has worked with people with intellectual disabilities and their families and other environments. Her main research interests are early intervention, quality of life and intervention of people with the most severe communication disabilities, and augmentative and alternative communication, manual signs and other unaided communication forms, in particular. At present, she works at the University of Helsinki as a university lecturer and the director of the BA and MA programme in logopaedics.

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Published

2020-07-09

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Savolainen, I., Klippi, A., & Launonen, K. (2020). Coconstructing in Conversations Using a Communication Book. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 9(2), 141-171. https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.36668