Auer, P., & Hörmeyer, I. (2017). Achieving intersubjectivity in Augmented and Alternative Communication (AAC): Intercorporeal, embodied and disembodied practices. In C. Meyer, J. Streeck, & J. S. Jordan (Eds.), Intercorporeality: Emerging socialities in interaction (Issue 55). Oxford Scholarship Online. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210465.003.0013
This study examined intersubjectivity (i.e., participant displays of understanding one another’s talk or actions) among two teenagers and one young adult with cerebral palsy who use AAC and their adult and peer communication partners. The first excerpt demonstrated how intersubjectivity can be compromised by a lack of “mutual incorporation”, or coordinating meaning through attunement to one another’s body movements, due to the ways AAC composition introduces time delays, sequential disorder, and severed interaction in the immediate context. In the second excerpt, intersubjectivity was achieved through a “cognitive way of intercorporeality” that included the device; the AAC user independently authored full and complete sentences while the communication partners used screen orientation to contribute “hint-and-guess” sequences which were neither confirmed or denied by the AAC user. The final excerpt documented an “intercorporeal route” of achieving intersubjectivity where disembodied language and bodily practices were combined in a collaborative, dialogical way with communication partners. Strategies that appeared to minimize breakdowns in intersubjectivity included the AAC user limiting composition time by avoiding complex utterances, partner engagement in hint-and-guess sequences, and by having a co-participant moderate how individuals participated in the interaction.