Ricerc@Sapienza

A number of attempts have been made to capture the discourse of AAC users (Beukelman, et al.
1984; Vertanen & Kristensson, 2011) but only one corpus exists that explicitly focusses on the
language of AAC users and non-AAC users in the workplace. In this chapter, we will discuss the
work that has been done to describe AAC users’ discourse and research conducted using the
AAC and non-AAC workplace corpus (ANAWC) (Pickering & Bruce, 2009). This work has
shown that AAC users often prefer to vocalize instead of using their devices in interaction in

Purpose of Review A survey of current research including people with disorders in which speech is impaired shows that
vocalizations are vastly discussed as a communication strategy, used both in isolation or paired with other aids. The principal
goal of this paper is to describe the ways researchers are using the term vocalizations and the meanings and functions attributed to
it. We also discuss possible future developments for specific research on unaided communication.