Savolainen, I., Klippi, A., Tykkyläinen, T., & Launonen, K. (2020). Linguistic and temporal resources of pre-stored utterances in everyday conversations. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 36(3), 195–214. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265659020950388
This study examined the linguistic and temporal resources of pre-stored utterances that were used in co-construction between four school-aged aided communicators from age 7 to 18 years with a variety of disabilities (e.g., cerebral palsy, brainstem stroke, Aicardi goutiéres syndrome) while interacting with their mothers, peers and speech-language pathologists (SLPs). The linguistic resources of pre-stored utterances (i.e., multiple words, grammatically correct, completely formed, colloquial nature) were used to create group identity, support progressivity, facilitate creativity, co-construct diverse social actions, and express emotional stances in ways similar to individuals who use speech to communicate. When the linguistic form of the pre-stored utterance was imprecise, participants used a variety of resources to repair misunderstandings (e.g., clarification, other-initiated self-repair, candidate understanding, reformulation, elaboration, confirmation, and using the larger course of actions). The temporal resources (i.e., rapid expressions, clear position in the sequence, properly timed transitions, phrases that perform social action of furthering conversation) facilitated the use of pre-stored utterances in the first pair part of a sequence, balanced symmetry of participation, communication partners’ recognition of turn boundaries, rapid repair sequences, and execution of overlapping and latching turn-transitions. When pre-stored utterances were activated in unusual ways due to creativity, misactivation, or efficiency, it did not disrupt progressivity or the process of co-construction.