10 Four young adults who use AAC, their communication aids and shopping habits
10.4 Shopping pre‐Phrases
All the participants went shopping together with an assistant, equipped with an audio-recorder to document what went on during the shopping and what the participants said.
A project member accompanied the shoppers at a distance, and also took some field notes. After the shopping sessions the participants were asked some pre-prepared questions.
John went shopping together with his assistant and the occupational therapist from the project. They went to the pharmacy to buy a plaster to put behind the ear against motion sickness and to take a photo for a passport. John was going to travel, so he needed these things. At the pharmacy they had to wait for quite some time for their turn. While
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waiting, an old friend came up to the occupational therapist, and the two of them had a conversation that did not involve John. It was the assistant who talked to the shop assistants and performed all the practical actions. John had his VOCA with him and it was turned on. He used it to say some things to his assistant and to create an SMS that he sent to his mother, to tell her that she owed the assistant money for the medicine that he had paid for.
Peter went shopping for shoes at a mall together with his assistant. He also helped the researcher who accompanied them to look for things they could use at the upcoming role-play workshops. Peter chose some water bottles and t-shirts that he liked. He used his VOCA for a short instance to talk about the colours. Otherwise he mostly used his laser pointer to point to the things he wanted to look at. At one point he was going to drive up to a mirror to look at the shoes he had tried on, but there was another customer in his way. Peter then waited in vain for a long time for the customer to move away. The result was that Peter gave up trying to get to the mirror, and instead drove back to the assistant. He never tried to ask the customer to move.
David went grocery shopping at his local supermarket, together with his assistant. Two members of the project group followed at a distance. David drove up to the sections where what he wanted was to be found, and stopped there. The assistant asked David to confirm what he took from the shelves, but this was done both with and without the VOCA. David continued through the different sections, indicating that he remembered what was on the shopping list. During the shopping a person who used to work for David came up to him and his assistant. She greeted them both and stopped and talked for a while, giving David some comments about his hair and his glasses, that he answered with vocalisations. It was the assistant who did all the talking and handling of objects and also paid for what they had bought. Outside the cash points there was a small cafeteria, where the assistant bought a drink for David. He asked him questions about what drink he preferred, that David could answer with yes and no.
Lisa went shopping with the speech-language therapist who worked with her at school.
They went to a grocery store near the school, and Lisa had her VOCA with her and turned on. At that point in time Lisa lived at a group home during the weeks and went home to her parents every second week. She did not have any assistant at that point, so the most regular way of shopping would have been with her mother. On this occasion, Lisa bought things to eat and some candy. She used her VOCA in the grocery store to direct her speech-language therapist to what she wanted to buy, to ask about the price and if the one-hundred crown note they had with them would be enough. It seemed like the shop assistant addressed Lisa at one point, even if it was the speech-language therapist who handled the items and gave the shop assistant the money.
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10.4.1 Interviews after shopping
After the shopping the participants were asked a number of questions that had to do with their satisfaction with what had just happened. These questions were inspired by the notion that the function of an activity that is performed with the help of assistive technology is influenced by attitudes, control and enabling factors for the individual who uses the technology (Anderberg, 2006). The first questions were: “Did it go the way you thought (in the shop)?” and “Are you satisfied with the way it turned out / what happened?”
All participants answered that for the most part it went the way they thought it would go, Lisa a bit less than the others. David and Peter were satisfied with what had happened in the shop, but Lisa was not totally satisfied and John was just more or less satisfied. There were no follow-up questions at the time, but John had to wait a very long time at the pharmacy, which may explain some of his dissatisfaction. Lisa did not find what she looked for at once, which might explain her answer, but of course other factors could be at work here as well.
The next question was: “Are you satisfied with the result? (i.e., did you get to buy/ask/see what you wanted?)”. To this question all four participants answered that they were satisfied (5). Another question that there was a consensus about was: “Is there anything that should be done differently next time?”. The answer was no (1).
Table 11.3. Questions about satisfaction regarding the way the participants were treated by shop assistants and customers in the shop
Are you satisfied with the way the shop assistant treated you?
1. Dissatisfied 2. 3. More or less 4. 5. Satisfied
David shop 1 D1
Lisa shop 1 L1
John shop 1 J1
Peter shop 1 P1
Are you satisfied with the way the other customers treated you?
1. Dissatisfied 2. 3. More or less 4. 5. Satisfied
David shop 1 D1
Lisa shop 1 L1
John shop 1 J1
Peter shop 1 P1
In table 11.3 we can see how the participants answered the questions: “Are you satisfied with the way the shop assistant treated you (Swedish: Är du nöjd med expeditens bemötande)?”, and “Are you satisfied with the way the other customers treated you?” It is evident that this was something that concerned them, since most of the times they answered only 3, “More or less satisfied”, to both these questions.
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When this question was discussed on other occasions, it seemed like the most important objection from the participants about the way they were treated in shops was that they were not seen or addressed. In the case of the specific shopping situations that preceded the questions, Peter was obviously not seen by the customer who stood in his way in front of the mirror, and not by the shop assistant in that shop either, who otherwise presumably would have helped him.
The following question was: “How much control did you have over the situation?” Here David, John and Peter answered 5, much, while Lisa gave it a 4. Maybe this reflected that she had needed help from the speech-language therapist to find what she was looking for in the shop.
Table 11.4. Question about the use of the communication aid in the shopping activity.
How much use did you have for your communication aid?
1. Not at all 2. 3. More or less 4. 5. Much
David shop 1 D1
Lisa shop 1 L1
John shop 1 J1
Peter shop 1 VOCA wasn't used P1 (laser pointer)
The last question was: “How much use did you have of your communication aid? (Sw:
Hur mycket var samtalshjälpmedlet till hjälp?), (table 11.4). David and Lisa both answered ‘more or less’ when asked if they had use of their VOCAs (3), while John thought that he had much use for his (5). Peter found that he had much use for his laser pointer (5), while he thought that he had no use at all for his VOCA (1), despite the fact that he actually used the VOCA on some occasions to talk to his assistant and to the researcher. Maybe he thought that with regard to the actual shopping, he could have done without the VOCA, and that the laser pointer was all he needed to point to the things he wanted to buy, which he did.
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