Supporting a child with multiple disabilities to participate in social interaction: The case of asking a question

Asking a question can be a highly challenging task for a person with multiple disabilities, but questions have not received much attention in research on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Conversation analysis is employed to examine an instance of multiparty interaction where a speech and language therapist supports a child with multiple disabilities to ask a question with a communication board. The question is accomplished through a practice where the action is built as a trajectory of interactional steps. Each step is built using ways of involvement that establish different participation spaces designed to deal with different aspects of asking a question: agreeing on the action type, the speaker and recipient, the content of the question, and then asking the question. The segmentation of a question into discrete steps and participation spaces can be used in intervention to model the construction of a question for AAC users and significant others.