Sharing personal stories with others is essential to human interaction and language development. To communicate, individuals use a variety of semiotic resources, including images, symbols, and written and spoken language. These modes are deployed in the co-construction of a daily face-to-face conversation. A self-created film can serve as a valuable resource to facilitate a deeper understanding of a personal experience, especially where spoken or written language may present a challenge, for example, for people who rely on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Although the AAC literature indicates that using videos delivers benefits for aided communicators, guidelines on how to self-create, use, and transcribe them are rare. The present paper, a tutorial, describes how people who use AAC can develop a personal-video-scene (PVS) via the Film as Observable Communication (FaOC) method to utilize self-created films in sharing their stories. The first part of this paper, the theoretical framework, describes theories, methods, and practices from the fields of AAC, social semiotics, and visual anthropology, on which the FaOC method is based. The second part provides a step-by-step tutorial delivering practical guidance on how to create, use, and transcribe the PVS as a resource in conversations.

When access to natural speech is limited or challenging, as is the case for people with complex communication needs, self-created digital film can be practical to use as one of the resources within a multimodal conversation about a personal experience. The detailed and contextual information such audiovisual media offers with today’s available technology may assist the utility of other communication modes, such as (computerized) spoken, written or signed language, to foster mutual understanding and story growth. To promote the use of self-created film, here named a personal-video-scene (PVS), in the practice of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), a greater understanding is required of how such media can operate as a resource within social interactions, such as daily conversations. This study therefore introduces a multimodal coding model developed to study the employment of a PVS within a film-elicited conversational narrative, relating to four aspects of conversational control: (a) topic development, (b) conversational structure, (c) conversational repair and (d) conversational maintenance. A case study illustrates how the use of a PVS in story-sharing was instrumental in establishing common ground between narrators, boosting the frequency of comments and questions, mitigating instances of conversational repair and expanding topic development.

Purpose of Review: The aim of this narrative review is to examine how augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) can be incorporated into digital image literacy for learners with complex communication needs. It explores how self-produced films can function as AAC-supported tools for sharing personal experiences and fostering inclusion and narrative development, with potentially transformative results. Recent Findings: Digital image literacy offers new opportunities for the integration of AAC into the inclusive education domain, particularly as it embeds within national curricula. Widely available technologies, such as tablets and smartphones, enable today’s learners to document their lives through digital film media and photography, to create personalized resources for use in everyday story sharing. This study synthesizes theoretical and pedagogical approaches that align these multimodal media technologies with broader language education objectives for inclusive education. Summary: Learners with complex communication needs produce their own films to bridge home and school contexts, thereby fostering digital image literacy and expressive communication skills. Future research should explore multimodal media production as a form of AAC supporting inclusive language pedagogy and story sharing.