Scenario 11

James is now nine years old and attends a mainstream primary school. James does not speak, although no-one has detected a physical cause for his lack of communication. James is a self-contained pupil, who has always found ways to get what he wants by climbing to reach items or pulling someone to do what ever is necessary to meet his needs. When he came to the school, although he did not scream and shout he was disruptive in class because he did not want to sit down and engage in tasks as requested – instead he wandered until he found something he wanted to do and then just did it. Teachers and SNAs signed to him, but he never spontaneously signed himself.

One activity that he did enjoy was the singing of action songs. Pictures were used to identify the songs regularly sung in class. All the pupils took turns to choose the song by picking up the appropriate picture and handing it to the teacher (speaking pupils also said the name of the song). James readily accepted this approach and it was progressively extended, using PCS symbols, to other objects and activities in the classroom. James’s desk was next to a wall and transparent photograph pockets were used to hold the symbols. James was initially given two or three symbols to choose between but he quickly started getting his own and handing them to his SNA to indicate what he wanted to happen. The symbols were then grouped according to topic and placed in wall hangers with pockets designed originally to store shoes. While this communication method worked in the classroom and at home James was fast outgrowing the number of symbols he could carry around, so a DynaMyte (synthesized VOCA) with PCS symbols was provided for him.

The symbols are still grouped by topic and a few sentence starters are available on each page. James is encouraged to use these to create full sentences. His SNA always tries to talk to him with the DynaMyte while also speaking the sentence. James sometimes still reaches for his symbols but is proud of his DynaMyte and actually spends time sitting listening to the various symbols ‘speaking’. At break and lunch time he takes it out and gives it to the member of staff on playground duty and (occasionally) grabs it back to sort something out with his friends.

Tip: The approach used with James was based on Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) – a highly structured system which has proved particularly useful with pupils on the continuum of autistic behaviour (see references for further information).

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above examples are the ability to:

• produce and organize large numbers of PCS symbols in photograph pockets
• program and use a DynaMyte VOCA (at the moment this is all being done by the SNA with occasional guidance from a SALT and class teacher)

The key equipment is:

• DynaMyte (synthesized VOCA) with PCS Symbols
• photograph pockets / shoe storage wall hangings
• PCS symbols for everything likely to arise

Basic concept / vocabulary reinforcement

There is no hard and fast rule as to the order in which concepts should be learned, but a suggested sequence is offered below. Paper based games to reinforce these are always valuable. SwitchIt! Maker, ChooseIt! Maker, My World, Clicker 4, Inclusive Writer, and Writing with Symbols 2000, can be used to create equivalent games on the computer, with relevant vocabulary (as opposed to programs with fixed vocabulary content) which brings more independence.

• recognition / identification – matching object to spoken name, object to picture / symbol, symbol to name – finding a symbol for a requested object amongst a selection of two to ten encourages both listening and visual search skills: doing it in pairs or teams, against the clock (kitchen timer) adds spice
• matching (same to same) – picture dominos, lotto
• same or different? – snap, Pelmanism
• association by group – ‘odd man out’
• association by function – what things go together – e.g. toothbrush and toothpaste tube)
• part to whole – e.g. leg to body, wheel to car, flower to plant
• sorting / classification – what goes in the air, what goes in the sea, etc.

There is always a series of levels within each task, e.g. simple task, task with distractor, task with more items, task with more difficult distractors etc.

Tip: The curriculum traditionally emphasizes classification by shape, size and colour – and so do many computer programs. But for language development, it is much more important to work on classification by meaning groups: e.g. sorting into animals or people, vehicles or buildings, actions or things, places inside or places outside.

Scenario 12

A favourite task among the younger pupils in Mrs H.’s class is sorting the symbols into sets of drawers (normally used for nuts and bolts etc). A category symbol is placed against the front face of each draw (and in the early stages in the bottom of each draw, so that the pupil sees the category item again when they pull the draw open). The pupil has a number of small laminated symbols (and toys / miniatures in the early stages) to put away in the drawers. Where the pupil is likely to progress to a particular communication system, pages from that system are printed and cut up for use in this task to familiarize the pupil with the symbols and colour codings used.

Mrs H. has also created a number of sorting tasks in Writing with Symbols 2000, using three part environments. To sort the items, the pupil clicks on the appropriate category window and then on the item. They are all done to the same format so that the pupils can concentrate on their categorization skills rather than the mechanics of the task. She also keeps a number of worksheet templates set up in Boardmaker. Dropping in the relevant symbols is quick and easy. In the sorting task, the pupils ring the odd-one-out.

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above example are the ability to:

• create worksheets in Boardmaker – templates make it quicker!
• create environments in Writing with Symbols 2000

The key equipment is:

• Boardmaker software (can be done in Clicker or Writing with Symbols 2000)
• Writing with Symbols 2000

Scenario 13

Janet speaks, but has restricted hand function. She will be using the computer for recording, rather than pencil and paper. Her ability seems patchy at different levels; she is strong on all visual tasks and can complete all discrimination, matching, sorting, visual memory, counting and mental maths tasks quickly and accurately – ahead of most of her classmates. However, although her speech is clear and her word recognition is good, her auditory discrimination and memory skills are much poorer; her understanding, expressive vocabulary and use of grammar are all extremely limited. Her new class teacher has temporarily banned all the visual skills and maths-based computer tasks. Janet is to follow a specially devised path through different packages, focusing at first on adjectives, prepositions, sequencing and sentence building.

Key skills and equipment

The key skill for the above example is the ability to:

• be familiar enough with the software available to sort out a progression of tasks specific to the needs of each individual

The key equipment is:

• Making Tracks to Literacy software (or in this case, language)
• Spider in the Kitchen software (prepositions)
• Making Sense with Words, Making Sense with Letters software
• Picture Sentence Key software (sentence building – agent-action-object)
• Clicker 4 software (continuation of sentence building, and for making a personalized talking book, using agent-action-object sentences generated by the pupil)

Moving on:

Once the pupil has acquired a basic symbol vocabulary it is time to move on to extending the pupil’s use of single word / symbol / or sign key meanings into more complex linguistic structures. For example, correctly ordering two, three word or longer sentences.

Scenario 14

Anne is mobile and has good hand function, so she can interact with her environment independently. She has no intelligible speech, has very severe difficulties in understanding the spoken language of others, and can get very frustrated. Manual signing is used in class, and Anne is acquiring quite a large expressive sign vocabulary. She can generate two-sign utterances on occasion. However, the more advanced her signing becomes, the more difficulty others in her family and in the community have in understanding it; so she is getting frustrated all over again.

She started by using a PCS symbol communication book (thirty symbols per page) to answer questions and spontaneously point out meanings she wishes to communicate. She has excellent visual skills and memory; she seems to acquire new symbol vocabulary quickly with a minimum of teaching. In class she also uses the Eclipse digitized VOCA set to eight-location, set up for small group use with various games and stories overlays.

She needed to move on to a more powerful VOCA, to give her access to a much bigger vocabulary, with a screen and printout providing visual feedback of her sentences. She now has a Norand portable touch screen PC, with Winspeak software and the Ingfield Dynamic Vocabulary.

It is not a question of Anne having to choose between signs, symbols or a VOCA – she will continue to use all of these, as well as her speech attempts.

Key skills and equipment

The key skills for the above example are the ability to:

• sign
• produce communication books
• program Eclipse (digitized VOCA) with appropriate vocabulary
• identify appropriate next VOCA or arrange an assessment with a team experienced in these issues
• set up and personalize the Norand PC as a communication system (with help from the supplier and an assessment team)

The key equipment is:

• Eclipse (digitized VOCA)
• Norand portable touch screen PC, with Winspeak software and the Ingfield Dynamic Vocabulary

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