AAC Language Activity Monitoring: Entering the New Millennium

This report describes how augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) automated language activity monitoring can provide clinicians with the tools they need to collect and analyze language samples from the natural environment of children with disabilities for clinical intervention and outcomes measurements. The Language Activity Monitor (LAM) is described as a recording device that can be attached and connected to any AAC system with an RS-232c serial data output. The LAM records each output (one or more letters, words, phrases, sentences, etc.) from the AAC system and attaches a time stamp. The report discusses how the LAM function has been implemented in a new AAC device and as an add-on module for existing devices, and how the recorded data can periodically be uploaded into a computer for editing and analysis. The processing of raw LAM data and analyzing LAM data are addressed. The ways in which LAM tools support the analysis of augmented communicator's production of linguistic structures, vocabulary diversity, and communication rate are emphasized. (Contains 13 references.) (CR)