Collaboration between stakeholders involved in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) care of people without natural speech.

Collaboration between stakeholders involved in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) care of people without natural speech. J Interprof Care. 2021 Jan 13;:1-11 Authors: Uthoff SAK, Zinkevich A, Boenisch J, Sachse SK, Bernasconi T, Ansmann L Abstract Collaboration among health care providers is intended to dissolve boundaries between the sectors of health care systems. The implementation of adequate augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) care of people without natural speech depends highly on collaboration among multiple stakeholders such as speech and language pathologists, teachers, or physicians. This paper examines existing barriers to and facilitators of collaboration from a stakeholder perspective. Five heterogeneous focus group interviews were conducted with N= 32 stakeholders including speech and language pathologists, AAC consultants, teachers, employees of sheltered workshops, parents, and relatives of AAC users, and other educational professionals (e.g., employees of homes for persons with disabilities) at three AAC counseling centers in Germany. Interview data were analyzed by structured qualitative content analysis. The results show very different experiences of collaboration in AAC care. Factors were identified that can have both positive and negative effects on the collaboration between all stakeholders (e.g., openness toward AAC, knowledge about AAC, communication between stakeholders). In additio...
Source: Journal of Interprofessional Care - Category: Health Management Tags: J Interprof Care Source Type: research