Communication Message Planning

Wendy Homlish Bonnie Young

CLIU 21

Deb DiMenichiCIU 20

Central Goal of AAC

• To communicate messages so users can interact in conversations

• Participate at school, home, work, recreational activities

• Establish and maintain social roles• Meet personal needs

Purpose of Communicative Interaction• Communication of

needs and wants• Information

transfer• Social closeness• Social etiquette

• Janice Light, 1988

Vocabulary Selection Goals• Vocabulary selection should be:

• Individualized to reflect the individual’s experiences, interests, and communication needs.

• Reflective of the individual’s personality and culture.

• A dynamic process, reflecting the individual’s changing needs and skills.

• The individual should be involved in decisions related to vocabulary selection and maintenance.

Blank Page Activity

Baker’s ….

Common Vocabulary Selection Techniques

• Categorical Inventory• Core Vocabulary Lists• Communication Diary• Environmental Inventory• Activity-Based Scripts

Categorical Inventory• Involves asking informants to suggest

words that might be useful to the individual in a number of different word categories:• people• places• feelings• activities• etc.

Core Vocabulary Lists

• Involves reviewing and prioritizing the words in one or more standard vocabulary lists

• Core and fringe vocabulary

Word List Resources

• Berger (1967)• Unguarded conversation of normal

individuals in public places

• Richards (1974)• 300 most familiar concrete nouns

• Fristoe and Lloyd (1979)• List of vocabulary items occurring in

more than one of 20 manuals of signs.

• Karlan and Lloyd (1983)• Words that individuals familiar

with individuals with severe disabilities though would be important for individuals who are non speaking to have available

Word list Resources (cont’d)

Resources (cont’d)• Beukelman, Yorkston, Problete,

Naranjo (1984)• 500 most frequently occurring words in

language samples from individuals with severe physical disabilities who used letter-by letter typing for their communication.

• Prentke Romich Co. • Http://aac.unl.edu.

• Barkley AAC Lab University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Communication Diary

• Involves gathering the messages the individual attempts to communicate

Environmental Inventory

• Involves selecting vocabulary by observing or interviewing the individual

Activity-based Scripts• Involves brainstorming the

vocabulary that is necessary for a particular activity, and priority-ranking it to match the number of targets the individual can access at one time.• Environmental Communication Teaching (ECT)• Scripting in MinSpeak• Musselwhite and Burkhart – Social Scripts

Communication Message Selection Issues• Messages should be

• age appropriate• fun and motivating• purposeful and

meaningful• natural and useful to

activity• promote active,

natural participation• generic and

reusable

Issues (continued)

• Communication messages should:• promote communication - not activity

sequencing skills• have a high frequency of occurrence• be driven by the individual• continually be updated and reviewed

Planning AAC Displays for a Given Activity• Review the curriculum objectives to

determine:• basic messages needed to carry out the

activity• problem-solving messages needed• any general social politeness messages

that would be age-and activity-appropriate• any recurrent words or phrases within the

set of messages.

Activity - Initial Message Selection

• Break into 2 groups• Choose activity• Use selection techniques

(Categorical Inventory and Activity-based Scripts) to begin to select messages for chosen activity

• Group feedback

Symbol Choices

• Considerations for Selecting Symbols• individual’s visual/perceptual skills• frequency of use of symbol set• embellishments• message gloss (labels)

Symbol Choices (continued)• Other Issues in Symbol Selection:

• using symbols from more than one set/system• using the same symbol set (across

individuals/classes) in all environments• transitions from one type of symbol set/system to

another• impact of today’s decisions on an individual’s future• materials available• are messages predominately word or sentence

based?• Literacy skills?

Pictures are Easy?

Answers:

Communication message arrangement should:• allow for growth & power.

• promote language flexibility.

• include key messages on all arrangements.

Symbol selection & arrangement should consider:

• visual issues• tactile issues• cognitive issues• motor issues• cultural issues

Visual Issues• Size• organization• white

space/text/lines• clarity• black/white vs.

color• highlight colors• glare• “type”• embellishment

* consistency of location

Cognitive Issues

• size• number• organization• spelling availability• color/categories

Motor Issues

• size• shape• organization - frequency of

occurrence*consistency of location

Other considerations:

• use of supplemental symbols• “Fringe vocabulary”

• transition issues• portability

• ambulatory vs. non-ambulatory• varies from environment to

environment

Guidelines for Organization of

Communication DisplaysFour Major types of organizational

arrangements for displays:

• Activity-Based Displays• Category-Based Displays• Semantic-Syntactic • Alphabetic

Activity-Based Displays

• Can include photo albums & conversation books, in addition to the activity-based miniboards.

• May be helpful for young children/individuals with memory or cognitive deficits who depend upon episodic memory or contextual cues.

Activity-Based Displays

• May necessitate repeating of symbols across multiple displays

Category-Based Displays

• Are groupings based on categories with vocabulary items arranged according to familiar subcategories, such as:• Foods

• Drinks• Desserts• Snacks• Etc.

• Can include pictionaries and topic boards, e.g., “I want to talk about home/feelings/school”

• Require knowledge of concepts that typically develop with formal education

• Make it difficult to express relational concepts and complex thoughts and very difficult to use appropriate syntax

Semantic-Syntactic Displays

• Are groupings based upon some knowledge of grammar, even early semantic constructions

• provide a way to generate more complex thoughts using expressive language, to develop linguistic skill, and to facilitate literacy skills

Semantic-Syntactic DisplaysCan include…

• semantic arrangements (agent-action-object), •grammatical arrangements (subject-object-verb), •a modified Fitzgerald Key

Can make it possible for communicative partners to model language using augmented input/aided language stimulation techniques.

Fitzgerald Key•Pronouns• verbs• descriptive words (adjectives/adverbs),• prepositions• nouns• Social greetings, miscellaneous, and numbers, letters, dates are on the far right.

Color Coding• Pink=verbs,• Blue=Descriptive,• Yellow=nouns, •Orange=social,• Green=prepositions. (Carol Goosens)

Alphabetic Displays:

• are groupings based on the alphabet whose purpose is to provide unrestricted access to language, to provide word boards, to alphabetize elements within categories, and to encourage the development of spelling.

• can include alphabet, word and combination boards.

• depend, for configuration, on prior experiences, future goals and the message selection techniques being used.

Trends in Children’s Learning Suggest:• Schematic organizations are the first

ways they classify the world• Taxonomic categories are learned with

the development of language along with semantic-syntactic organizations

• Alphabetic organizations require literacy skills and metalinguistic knowledge

In practice:• There is no evidence to suggest individuals must

progress through this sequence; rather, displays should be individualized to their cognitive or linguistic skills and to goals and objectives in these areas.

• Combinations of these arrangements may be used effectively. A display can be:• Activity-based overall• Have semantic categories arranged within an

activity-based display• And have alphabetic arrangement within a

semantic category

Expansion

• “Templated maximum capacity overlay” approach• plan ahead and plan for growth

• use of masks• use of open spaces

Activity - Display Configuration

• Remember to consider the following for your student:• Visual abilities• Motor capabilities• Cognitive abilities• Size of display• Shape of display• Organization schema• Ambulatory vs. .non-

ambulatory

• Color or black/white symbols

• White space/text/lines• Background - color vs.

white• Transition issues• Portability• Supplemental

symbols

Revision Issues - Points to Ponder...• Which of the selected items may be used to represent a

variety of communicative functions?

• Which items have potential use for multi-word combinations?

• Which items can best reflect the “here and now”?

• Which items can reflect objects, people, events not salient in the immediate context?

• Which items can potentially be used in peer interaction and play?

Revision Issues (Cont’d)

• Have opposites of all items been included?• Can novel utterances be expressed?• Can vocal play occur with this vocabulary?• Which items can the individual express using

residual oral, nonverbal, or idiosyncratic signaling systems?

• How has the issue of future growth been dealt with?

Revision Issues (cont’d)

• How has the issue of the use of concrete symbolic associations vs. moving towards Minspeak, Dynasyms, etc., been dealt with?

• How do we deal with the ever-increasing vocabulary demands from academic and curricular areas?

• Are the messages on the vocal output communication aid taking advantage of the output?

• Are there vocabulary items that could be just manual board symbols?

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VocabularySelectionVocabularySelection

Symbol SelectionSymbol Selection

DisplayArrangement

DisplayArrangement

Process for Selectionand Display Creation