Western Cape special schools learner communication needs

1. Describe their concomitant difficulties in other functional areas;
2. Describe the communication methods they use in class
3. Describe communication support for learners with CCN including the following: Aided AAC provision; Therapeutic support; Documentation of communication support in the Individual Education Development Plan (IEDP) and/or Individual Support Plan (ISP); and
4. To describe teacher training in AAC.

A non-experimental quantitative survey research design was used in this study. An online questionnaire was developed and populated onto the QualtricsXM software. A combination of purposive and comprehensive sampling were used in this study. The link to the electronic questionnaire was distributed to foundation phase teachers at 17 special schools in the Western Cape schools whose principals gave permission for distribution. The responses from 56 teachers were analysed using descriptive statistics.

The principles of the 37 special schools selected for the study were approached and permission was obtained from 17 schools to recruit teachers meeting the selection criteria to participate in the study. Prospective respondents were provided with a detailed information letter and consent was obtained by means of an electronic consent form included as the first part of the online questionnaire. The letters with embedded links to the consent form and survey was sent to the liaisons of schools to distribute amongst teachers. The survey was closed after 56 days and all responses were downloaded and imported into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for analysis.