Outreach Director Cyral Miller

Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired Outreach Programs

512-454-8631

Superintendent William Daugherty

Texas Focus: Learning From Near to Far

Tangible Symbols, or Are They?

Strategies for Determining Meaningful Tangible Symbols for Your Student

Time: 8:30-10:00 AM

Date: June 11, 2010

Presented by

Philip D. Schweigert, Instructional Lead

New Mexico School for the Blind & Visually Impaired

Developed for

Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired Outreach Programs

Tangible Symbols, or Are They?

Strategies for Determining Meaningful Tangible Symbols for Your Student

Philip D. Schweigert

New Mexico School for the Blind & Visually Impaired

Albuquerque, NM

Properties of Tangible Symbols

Iconic: clear perceptual relationship to referent
Permanent: lower memory demands
Manipulable: make communication exchange literal
Simple Motor Response: required to indicate symbol
Tactually Discriminable

Types of Tangible Symbols

(Rowland and Schweigert  2000)

Levels of Representation:Identical Object

Referent: Raisins, Bolt

Symbol: A few raisins glued to a piece of cardboard

A bolt is shrink-wrapped onto cardboard backing

Levels of Representation:Partial or Associated Object

Referent: Shoe, Bicycle, Car/Out, Eating

Symbol: Shoelace, Handle Grip, Car Key, Spoon

Levels of Representation:One or Two Shared Features

Referent: Pretzel, Multicolored Vinyl, Therapy Ball

Symbol: Thermoform of pretzel (shares shape & size with referent)

Wood block covered with multicolored vinyl

Shares texture and color with referent; for blind individuals only one feature <texture> is shared

Levels of Representation:Artificial Association

Referent: Work Table, Cafeteria

Symbol: Ribbed rubber mat is attached to table: a small piece of the mat serves as the symbol

Wooden apple shape is attached to cafeteria door: a similar shape serves as the symbol

Levels of Representation: Photographs

Referent: Self-Explanatory

Symbol: Self-Explanatory

Levels of Representation: Line Drawings

Referent: Self-Explanatory

Symbol: Self-Explanatory

“Tangible” Means . . .

Physically Tangible

Conceptually Tangible to the INDIVIDUAL USER (eye of the beholder)

Tangible Symbols Instruction Key Elements

Readiness
Motivation
Indicating Response
Comprehension
Promoting Progress

PreintentionalBehavior

The child’s behavior is not under his own control. It is in reaction to things (such as feeling hungry or wet or sleepy). Parents interpret the child’s state from his general behaviors, such as body movements, facial expressions and sounds.

Intentional Behavior

The child’s behavior is now intentional (under the child’s control), but she does not understand that “If I do this, Mom or Dad will do that for me”–in other words she does not communicate intentionally yet. Parents continue to interpret the child’s needs and desires from her behavior, such as body movements, facial expressions, vocalizations and eye gaze.

Unconventional Communication

The child uses pre-symbolic behaviors intentionally to express his needs and desires to other people. They are called “unconventional” because they are not socially acceptable for us to use as we grow older: they include body movements, vocalizations, facial expressions and simple gestures (such as tugging on people).

Conventional Communication

The child uses pre-symbolic behaviors intentionally to express her needs and desire to other people. “Conventional” gestures include behaviors such as pointing and nodding the head “yes”. We continue to use conventional gestures as adults to accompany our language. Note that many of these gestures (and especially pointing) require good visual skills and may not be appropriate for children with severe vision impairment.

Concrete Symbols

Symbols physically resemble what they represent in a way that is obvious to the child—they look like, feel like, move like or sound like what they represent. Concrete symbols include picture symbols, objects used as symbols (such as a shoelace to represent “shoe”), certain “iconic” gestures (such as patting a chair to say “sit down”) and sounds (such as making a buzzing sound to refer to a bee). Children with severe physical impairments may access picture and object symbols through the use of a mechanical device or by pointing, touching or eye gaze.

Abstract Symbols

The child uses abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, or Brailled or printed words. These symbols do not look, feel, or sound like what they represent. They are used one at a time.

Language

The child combines symbols (any sort of symbols) into ordered two- or three-symbol combinations (“want juice”, “me want juice”), according to grammatical rules. The child understands that the meaning of word combinations may differ depending upon how the symbols are arranged.

Characteristics of Intentional Communication

Persistence
Repetition
Alternating Gaze (body orientation, leaning toward)
Changing the signal used
Awaiting a response
Terminating the signal when responded to
Indicating satisfaction or dissatisfaction to response (Wetherby& Prizant 1989)

Receptive Communication

Sensory Mode and Form to which Learner Responds

Texas Focus Parent Pre-Conference: Connecting From Near And Far - Schweigert

Visual (Motor / Gestural)

Proximity of person
Faces
Eye contact
Facial expressions
Gestures
Visual regard
Manual signs
Sign language

Auditory (Vocal)

Any vocalization
Speech in general
Intonation/ register stress of speech
Specific words
Spoken language

Tactile

Handling
Touch
Specific touch cues
Hand-in-hand signs

Visual and/or Tactile (Tangible Cues)

Environmental cues
Object symbols
Picture symbols
Abstract symbol systems (Braille, BLISS)

Texas Focus Parent Pre-Conference: Connecting From Near And Far - Schweigert

Awareness

Description: Reacts to People and may begin to orient towards them

Example: Quiets fusses stiffens when engaged by another person May begin to turn or lean toward them when engaged by them

Anticipation

Description:Orients toward people and may begin to attend to their communicative behavior

Example: Quiets and orient to, touching or tactually exploring the person when engaged. Shows general anticipation such as smiling, reaching toward, when engaged by another person

Recognition

Description: Attends to another's communication and responds to their specific behaviors and intents

Example: Shows specific response associated with a specific cue from other person such as leans forward when presented with a bib, or bounces when assisted to touch the therapy ball

Figure 2 Page from Tangible Symbols Pretest - Part 1

Requesting Attention

Does the indicating response you have targeted include a means for the child to gain your attention?

If not, consider how the child will do this:

Touch you
Vocalize
Approach you
Raise hand or other gesture toward you

Comprehension:

How do you know that the individual really understands what the symbols mean?

More about Picture Recognition

Some studies have suggested that children first develop the ability to

Recognize (point and label) picture
Then interpret them (get information about their world from them
Finally learn that pictures can be used to represent specific reality (using them for symbolic communication)

It may be possible to teach someone to use a more abstract symbol through repeated practice but the task is far easier if the learner understands the representation inherent in the symbol.

Fast mapping

As the learner begins to acquire vocabulary at a certain level of symbolic representation new vocabulary may be learned at a faster rate

Moving the learner to a more abstract level too soon rather than allowing them to develop a meaningful vocabulary at the current level may preclude this fast mapping.

Assessment

Assessment of Skills. Indicate if you are conducting an assessment to determine the learner’s communicative behaviors and intents in the home and or school environment.

Assessment of Preferences. Indicate if you are investigating what is motivating to the learner at this time. Often times this is an ongoing part of instruction.

Symbol Type Probe. If applicable, conduct Tangible Symbols Pretest

Assessment of Environment. Indicate if you are conducting an analysis of the child’s environment to determine existing and new supports to learning.

Teaching Routine: (cues, responses and consequences)

Materials/Vocabulary. List the specific materials used in this activity to teach or practice the target skills.

Array size. Indicate the number of objects presented at one time

Distractors. If appropriate, describe whether the objects other than the desired one in the array are nothing (unknown), non-preferred or equally preferred items.

Instructional Format. Describe the manner in which objects are presented to the learner (e.g. to his left, randomly, with contrasting backgrounds, one at a time, etc.). Describe how the learning opportunity is to be provided (e.g. Direct Instruction or Environmental Engineering; duration and manner of interaction before pausing, alternating treatment reinforcement first then no reinforcement phase etc).

Scanning. Describe any assistance provided as needed to insure that the learner is aware of what is available.

Instructional Cues. Describe what the teacher does to elicit a response from the learner.

Targeted Behavior. Describe how the learner is to respond. This may include any mechanical adaptation

Time/Latency. Indicate the amount of time to be allowed the learner to respond.

Level of Assistance. Describe any physical assistance, model/demonstration, or other assistance that is being provided to the learner to make his response.

Protest/Reject. Describe the behavior or absence of behavior, used by the learner to reject choices or further engagement with current activity.

Consequence. Describe the manner in which the partner responds when the learner makes a correct and, (if possible/appropriate), an incorrect response.

Rowland and Schweigert 2000

•Environment

•Setting. Describe the context in which the learning opportunity is being targeted.

•Partner. List the person(s) with whom the learner will be interacting in the target activity.

•Position. Describe any unique positioning considerations that will be made to enable the learner to respond. This may include partner’s position in relation to the learner.

Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired

Outreach Programs

1100 West 45th Street

Austin, Texas 78756

512-454-8631

Figure 5 TSBVI Outreach Programs logo

Figure 6 OSEP logo

This project is supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). Opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. Department of Education.

2010 Texas Focus: Learning From Near to Far - Schweigert