Christine Holyfield Source Confirmed

Affiliation confirmed via AI analysis of OpenAlex, ORCID, and web sources.

Federal Grant PI

Associate Professor

University of Arkansas at Fayetteville

faculty

15 h-index 49 pubs 665 cited

Research Areas

Autism Spectrum Disorder Research Augmentative and Alternative Communication Down Syndrome Research Natural Language Processing Techniques Meta-analysis and systematic reviews Mobile Health and mHealth Applications Behavioral Health and Interventions

Links

ORCID Lab Website

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OverviewAI-generated summary

Christine Holyfield's research focuses on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions, particularly for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome. Her work investigates the efficacy of various AAC approaches, including mobile technology-based speech-generating devices, picture symbol representations, and text-only communication methods. She has examined the impact of high-tech versus low-tech AAC on indices of happiness in school-aged children with multiple disabilities and explored the integration of speech recognition technologies and familiar listeners into AAC interventions for adults with Down syndrome.

Holyfield has led federal grant initiatives, including an NSF Convergence Accelerator Track H award totaling $749,960 for developing next-generation AI-powered augmentative and alternative communication technology. Her research has also explored the effects of specific AAC features on decoding and encoding skills, as well as single-word reading abilities in individuals with Down syndrome. She maintains an active lab website and collaborates with researchers at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, including Elizabeth R. Lorah, Nicolette Caldwell, Tara O’Neill, and Cody Lindbloom, with whom she has co-authored numerous publications.

Her scholarly output includes a significant number of publications, with an h-index of 15 and over 665 total citations. Recent publications address systematic reviews of research comparing different AAC modes for individuals with autism and the evidence-based instruction for this population using mobile AAC technology. Her work also extends to leveraging communication partner speech to automate augmented input for minimally verbal children on the autism spectrum.

Metrics

h-index: 15
Publications: 49
Citations: 665

Selected Publications

An Examination of Context-Aware Augmentative and Alternative Communication with Automated Response Options for Academic Communication From Autistic Children (2026) DOI
Helping or Homogenizing? GenAI as a Design Partner to Pre-Service SLPs for Just-in-Time Programming of AAC (2025) DOI
“It's a Lot of Collaboration”: Related Service Providers Supporting Literacy Instruction for Learners Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (2025) DOI
Effect of AAC intervention on communication within social routines from preschool-age emerging symbolic communicators with developmental disabilities (2025) DOI
Future of AAC technologies: priorities for inclusive innovation (2025) DOI
External challenges for individuals who need or use AAC who are learning language: lived experiences, key research findings, and future directions (2025) DOI
Overcoming barriers to literacy for individuals who need or use AAC: lived experiences, key research findings, and future directions (2025) DOI
Effect of AAC technology with embedded literacy supports on the participation of children who are emerging symbolic communicators during shared reading (2025) DOI
Effect of explicit literacy instruction on letter-sound correspondence acquisition for a child with cerebral palsy who uses AAC eye gaze (2025) DOI
The feasibility of just-in-time programming of visual scene displays on mobile technology in AAC intervention for adult beginning communicators (2025) DOI
Exploring Engagement Opportunities for Autistic Children: Using AAC as a Controller in a Wizard-of-Oz Coloring Game (2025) DOI
Accessible Literacy for Emerging Communicators: A Proposed Model and Case Application With Children on the Autism Spectrum (2024) DOI
Preliminary Investigation of Context-Aware Augmentative and Alternative Communication with Automated Just-in-Time Cloze Phrase Response Options for Social Participation from Children on the Autism Spectrum (2024) DOI
Predictive Anchoring: A Novel Interaction to Support Contextualized Suggestions for Grid Displays (2024) DOI
Exploring the use of Generative AI to Support Automated Just-in-Time Programming for Visual Scene Displays (2024) DOI