Savolainen, I., Klippi, A., & Launonen, K. (2018). 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
This study described the processes of co-construction between an 18-year-old (with a diagnosis of Aicardi goutieres syndrome) and a ten-year-old boy (with brainstem stroke) who use pragmatically organized communication books and their adult communication partners. The six multimodal interactional resources utilized in co-construction were either static or slowly developing, including linguistic meaning, sequential position, larger course of actions, displays of emotions, common ground, and participants’ roles. In contrast, the synchronization of multimodal practices were rapidly changing and included the following: a) synchronization of pre-beginnings; b) anticipation of pointing actions; c) glancing to communication partner, and; d) changing the author of the turn through gaze. The temporal nature of co-construction was observed as students frequently timed their pre-beginnings at a transition relevance place and the therapists were often sensitive to those pre-beginnings through their gaze and the timing of their talk. There was a progressive nature of co-construction; rather than being consecutively produced, the students’ pointing overlapped with previous communication partner actions and the therapists’ voicing overlapped with students’ pointing. Finally, there was a co-operative nature to co-construction. Sometimes the students and therapists maintained both maintained their orientation to the communication book, but they glanced at their partner when progressivity was threatened. For example, glances monitored the following: the progress of turns when the aided speaker discontinued his turn, the orientation of the communication partner after there had been disorientation, mutual understanding following motorically inaccurate pointing, navigation progress in the communication book, progressivity during hand changes of aided communicators during turn construction, partner orientation following interrupted prebeginnings, as well changing of authorship.