Chapter 3 - Communication Symbols & Rate Enhancement Flashcards
Symbol
– represents or stands for something else.
e.g. golden arches
Referent
- what a symbol stands for – refers to.
e. g. md’s itself
Iconicity
- This describes the symbol. It relates to how easy it is to guess the referent. Is it an abstract or concrete symbol? Does it look like what it represents? Ex: “ice cream”.
Symbols that are easily “guessable” are called –>
“transparent” symbols.
Symbols that are hard to recognize are
“opaque” -
written words are considered______
opaque.
Symbols that are between these two (transparent and opaque) are:
“translucent” - these are learnable and need additional information to be able to guess the referent.
Ex: “V” for victory
Aided symbols
- physical materials used, pictures, real objects, communication boards, devices, etc.
Aided symbols: Disadvantages (2)
- may forget them
- reduces spontaneity.
Aided symbols: Advantages (1)
– may be more understandable than some unaided symbols
Unaided symbols
– no physical material. Consists of gestures, facial expressions, vocalizations, verbalizations, signing.
Unaided symbols: Disadvantages (1)
– difficult for unfamiliar listeners to understand.
Unaided symbols: Advantages (4)
- quick
- low cost
- durable
- available
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
1) Natural gestures
2) Emblems
3) Illustrators
4) Affect displays
5) Regulators
6) Adaptors
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
Natural gestures –>
- gestures we use everyday - hands, total body or face
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
Emblems –>
- gestures that represent entire messages - ex: shrug of shoulders to indicate “I don’t know” and holding finger to head to indicate suicide.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
Illustrators –>
- gesture to supplement the message –used with speech to convey more meaning.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
Affect displays –>
- facial expressions or body movements that represent feelings, emotional states.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
Regulators –>
- nonverbal ways we regulate behavior - use of eye contact to indicate turn taking behavior
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
A. Gestures
Adaptors
- gestures used mainly when alone and aren’t intentionally used to communicate.
Examples of some subtle nonverbal, nonvocal communication behaviors (compiled from Arlene Kraat, 1986).
- mutual eye gaze toward or away from speaker or object/action; ability to maintain eye gaze-to initiate interaction, request, comment, question, change topics, etc.
- Facial expression such as smile-happy, scowl/head no-displeasure, large smile.wide eyes-excitement, raising eyebrows-question.
- Turning head or body toward item/activity/location of interest to request or choose; and turning away to indicate refusal or what is not of interest.
- Change in movement and tone of body and extremities, signaling happiness, displeasure, awareness of new person or sounds, readiness to respond, initiation of interaction, gain attention, etc.
- Pointing, reaching toward, touching, taking, showing, giving, items of interest to request or choose item/action (e.g. taking partner’s hand to request something) rejecting by pushing, throwing, shoving, etc.
- Tugging, touching to gain attention, take a turn, request, etc.
- Moving (e.g. crawling toward, walking, scooting, leaning, etc.) toward and away from people/items/activities to request and reject.
- General body posture (e.g. relaxed, slumped, head up, etc.) to indicate interest, disinterest, request, reject, etc.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
B. Vocalizations and speech (3)
- vocal/auditory signals - some are unintentional, others are intentional – you sometimes might have to work on making them intentional:
- vocal noise, click, buzzer, bell, to gain attention, signal a message such as help or my turn, etc
- differentiated vocalization ( by variation in pitch, loudness, prosodic patterns, duration) to signal happiness, displeasure, excitement boredom, agreement, disagreement.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
C. Speech
– Can be used by communication partners - when doing auditory scanning
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
D. Gestural codes
- gestures coded to communicate something
1) Amer-Ind - 250 vocab/gestures, in combination-can convey many messages
2) Tadoma Method is used with dual sensory impairments, both deafness & blindness.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
E. Manual Sign systems
Considerations for use (3):
1) How intelligible are the signs
2) Motoric complexity – research has shown that signs with these features are easiest to learn - those that require contact between the hands, are symmetrical (both hands make the same shape), are produced within the user’s visual field, require a single, simple hand shape and that require the same hand movement be repeated.
3) It is possible to combine signing with other techniques. Speaking and signing at the same time is called Total Communication or TC.
UNAIDED SYMBOLS: GESTURES & VOCALIZATIONS
E. Manual Sign systems
Types of manual sign systems (3)
1) ASL-American Sign Lang. - developed specifically for deaf comm. Has own set of rules for grammar.
2) Signing Exact English - developed as an alternative to Signed English.
3) Key Word Signing - Sign only key words.
Aided symbols can be (4):
1) tangible
2) representational
3) abstract
4) orthographic
Aided symbols:
1.Tangible symbols
- you can hold them, touch them.
Aided symbols:
1.Tangible symbols (4)
1) Real objects - the most tangible & iconic. If you don’t know where to start with a client, start here.
2) Miniature objects - controversial, somewhat abstract - not as concrete.
3) Partial objects - part of the activity. Ex. Wand from bubbles
4) Artificially associated and textured symbols - You select some shapes or textures that you intentionally associate with a referent - green square to represent cafeteria or apple to represent cafeteria.
Aided symbols:
- Representational Symbols –> Photographs –>
- real life pics, or from catalogs or magazines. Certain people respond better to certain kinds of pies.
Aided symbols:
- Representational Symbols –> Line Drawings (6)
1) . PCS (Picture Communication Symbols) - one of the easiest to learn.
2) . Rebus Symbols - developed for children learning to read, phonetically based, pic may not be related to content. Ex. - May use picture of bumble bee for the verb “be”
3) Picsyms - more abstract than PCS, slightly more difficult to learn.
4) PIC (Pictogram Ideogram Communication Symbols) - white on black drawings, used with people who have figure-ground difficulty (controversial).
5) Blissymbolics - abstract, created for international code system.
6) Other pictoral systems - Pick `N Stick
Aided symbols:
- Abstract Symbol Systems
1) Yerkish Lexigrams - came out of a study with chimps. Made up of 9 geometric forms used alone or in combination. White and black.
2) Non-SLIP (Non-Speech Language Initiation Program) - Used with global aphasics and autism - made of plastic chips varying in size, shape and color and have the word on the back side.
Aided symbols:
- Orthographic Symbols
- orthography has to do with written characters/ letters
Braille - Used for people with visual or multi/sensory impairments.
Aided symbols:
- Combined aided and unaided systems
Makaton Vocabulary - combines speech, manual signs and graphic symbols.
Used widely in England.
RATE ENHANCEMENT (3) Why do we need to use rate enhancement techniques?
1) We speak at approx. 150-250 words per minute.
2) An AAC user may be able to produce a message at approx. 15 words per minute.
3) To help overcome this we use rate enhancement techniques.
RATE ENHANCEMENT
I. Message encoding (grouping)
- encoding is defined in the dictionary as “putting a message into code”-in other words, creating a message for someone else to read, hear, etc.
In AAC terms, message encoding techniques involve learning to produce the message faster and more accurately.
RATE ENHANCEMENT
I. Message encoding
There are several techniques used to help speed up message encoding. (5)
A. Alpha or letter encoding
1. Salient letter encoding 2. Letter Category encoding
B. Numeric Encoding - simple assign numbers to the messages.
C. Morse Code
D. Iconic Encoding.
F. Color encoding
Message Prediction techniques (3): (like what your phone does when you text)
A. Single letter prediction
B. Word level prediction
1. Word Pattern Prediction - based on the frequency of word combinations. 2. Linguistic Prediction - predicts based on the syntax of our language.
C. Phrase/Sentence Level Prediction - Predicts phrases or sentences that might follow.
