For 36 aphasic patients, two sets of tasks were designed in order to investigate the facilitation effect of onomatopoeia, compared with adverbs, for auditory comprehension and production of verbs. In the auditory comprehension task, onomatopoeias had facilitation effect as a cue, but the effectiveness of adverbs for verb comprehension was not confirmed. Among the onomatopoeias, only those which represent the action well, facilitated the auditory comprehension of verbs. In the verbal production task, a marginally significant advantage was seen for the more effectiveness of onomatopoeias than adverbs. The cues were thus divided into two ranks based on the stability of connection to the following target verbs. The cues of high stability rank significantly more facilitated verb speech than those of low stability. Onomatopoeias, especially those which have stable connection to following target verb, have an advantage in the effectiveness as a cue to facilitate aphasic patients' verbal production of verbs.

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This investigation describes how the deaf express manual communication in actual conditions on the purpose to examine the relations among manual expressive movements, language background and language proficiency. The subjects consisted of 22 deaf high school students. Results indicated that the subjects who have deaf parents had many grammatical expressions in Japanese Sign Language, but subjects who have all hearing families and subjects who have a deaf family except their mother had only a few grammatical expressions in JSL. On the contrary, subjects who have deaf parents had only a few grammatical expressions in the Manual Code Japanese, but the others had lots of grammatical expressions of it. Subjects who have deaf parents and daily use sign language got high scores on Japanese language proficiency test, but many of the others got low scores. The amount of fingerspelling mistaken in Manual Code Japanese had an important relevance to proficiency in language of each subject. Overall, we show that there were significant relations between manual expressive movements and language background, and the relations had great influence on language proficiency of the deaf.

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We have experienced a therapy for one child who had severe mental retardation and showed a speech disability. He was eager to express his thought by means of non-verbal communication such as gesture and finger pointing. The purpose of the training was to encourage him to speak. We made use of some techniques of the methodology of global and dynamic structuring for speech therapy. They were “Tonae-uta” and “Shintairizumu-undo”. After one-year's therapy, the clarity of his speech had improved and he was able to express his thoughts and desires in his own words. The result of this training showed that the use of “Tonae-uta” might have been effective in his speech improvement.

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In recent years, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) has became popular as an effective approach among the language intervention practices. At the same time, AAC has developed as an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field of clinical and research effort which provides individuals with severe communication disorders with comprehensive support and services in terms of medical, welfare, and educational concerns. Based upon the two articles by Remington (1994) and Mirenda (1997), this paper introduced research trends of the behavior analytic approach which has been intended for theoritical investigation and development of intervention strategies, in relation to the use of AAC options. Implications for future requirement in intervention practices of AAC are discussed.

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This paper describes 2 nonspeaking children's progress of speech-language development during several years. One is a 6-year-old girl who had phocomelia, multiple anomaly and had mental retardation (DQ20). She had a tracheostomy because of respiratory difficulty. She has mastered gesticulated signs, pictures, graphical symbols, and Kana-letters in sequence. The comprehensive intervention during about 6 years enables her to communicate using a voice output communication aid of Kana-letters. Another is a 6-year-old physically able-bodied girl who had mental retardation (DQ27). She had good verbal comprehension and no speech. After 3 years' intervention, she has acquired about 20 spoken words and uses a lot of gesticulated signs, several communication boards, and a voice output communication aid of PCS. It's efficient to make use of the acquisition model for expressive language in order to graph out progress reports of interventions, and relativize AAC signs and symbols. Now we may benefit from the concepts and the techniques of AAC system, and need to reconstruct the speech-language intervention programs including the essentials of AAC.

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We introduced augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies to 6 persons with severe motor and intellectual disability in hospital home, to develop voluntary expression of their intention. These results were that their lives and communication behaviors varied, and AAC had many significances for their QOL. However in order to realize the significance, it was important to support the patients from the viewpoint of general and mutual system, solving the environmental problems of helper's knowledge or thought about AAC, but also to estimate each individual person's abilities. Especially in the hospital home, it was more important to make the system of team approach around the room helper accepting patient's needs.

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Recently, the functional communication ability is getting important in aphasia therapy. In this circumstance, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is recognized as one of the effective intervention strategies. In this paper, it was introduced that the direction of intervention of AAC for aphasic patients, and reported the processes and the results of AAC intervention for 3 patients who belonged to different type each other. By analyzing these 3 cases further, 3 required conditions for practical AAC intervention are indicated as followings: (1) to use the patient's knowledge through the experience of his life, (2) to train to “use” AAC strategies, and at this training, to approach for not only the patient but also the communication partner, (3) to intervene complying with patient's needs, further, creating one if he doesn't have obvious one.

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To develop an AAC-oriented remedial approach for patients suffering from progressive neuromuscular diseases, the outcome of a survey conducted by the Kinki Block of the Japan Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association (JALSA) in 1996 was reviewed. The results from the 159 ALS patients indicated that the types of AAC means used were limited and the means were applied less frequently than expected. It was also found that the provision of the AAC means was carried out relatively late which resulted in a shortening of the combination phase of speech and AAC means. Regarding PC-based communication devices two factors appeared to interfere with the utilization of these devices. One was insufficient switch readjustment as the disease progresses and the other was the partial assistance required in device manipulation. Based on these findings an AAC program for this population was designed.

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