Level V Concrete Symbolic Communication - Part 1

Summary

In this comprehensive overview, the concept of Level V Concrete Symbolic Communication is explored. This level marks a pivotal transitional stage where individuals develop their ability to use concrete symbols for communication, typically around 12 to 24 months. By using tactile and visually recognizable objects as symbols, individuals bridge the gap to more abstract symbols. The discussion also highlights how concrete symbols can serve as a bridge for some individuals toward understanding more abstract representation, and how teams can tailor communication strategies according to individual needs, particularly when preparing to advance to abstract symbols or considering sensory and motor abilities.

Highlights

• Concrete symbols serve as a crucial transitional step towards symbolic communication 🎓.
• Level 5 encompasses communicative intents similar to level 6, acting as a developmental bridge 🌉.
• Profiles like Leanne's and Libby's showcase individual adaptation needs 🌟.
• Communication at this level is intentional and directed, focusing on transitional symbols 📩.
• Use of tangible symbols helps individuals without abstract representation skills 🛠️.

Key Takeaways

• Concrete symbols are crucial in bridging pre-symbolic to symbolic communication 🌉.
• These symbols include tangible items like realistic pictures or objects resembling actual items 🖼️.
• Level 5 is transitional, uniquely important for those who struggle with abstract symbols ⚖️.
• Effective use of concrete symbols supports language development and literacy 📚.
• Tangible symbols can offer a practical mode of communication, especially for those with sensory challenges 👂👀.

Overview

The video explores the use of concrete symbols as a developmental tool in communication. It's designed for individuals at a critical learning stage, typically between the ages of 12 and 24 months, where symbolic communication starts to take shape. Level 5 is often a bridging stage for those who find it challenging to leap directly to abstract symbols.

Concrete symbols such as realistic pictures and objects form the foundation of communication at this stage. They allow individuals to express their needs, desires, and thoughts by associating these tangible symbols with real-life objects or concepts. This level forms a bridge to more abstract thought processes and symbol usage.

Different profiles, like those of Leanne and Libby, illustrate the diverse needs and paths individuals may take. Some may find concrete symbols to be their primary means of communication, while others use them as stepping stones towards more abstract symbol systems. Thus, personalized approaches are essential for effective communication development at this level.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Acknowledgments Introduction and Acknowledgments: This chapter is a prelude to the main content and includes acknowledgments. The author extends gratitude to the West Virginia Department of Education Office, particularly the federal programs and support special education, for providing the funding required for this project.
• 00:30 - 05:00: Characteristics and Usage of Concrete Symbols The chapter discusses the characteristics and usage of concrete symbols, typically developing between 12 to 24 months. It highlights the beginning of symbolic communication at this stage where symbols represent or stand for something else. This level, known as level five, often develops alongside gestures and words.
• 05:00 - 15:00: Individual Profiles and Team Decisions The chapter discusses the concept of reference having a one-to-one correspondence, meaning that symbols or gestures have a direct and clear connection to what they represent. Concrete symbols, like realistic pictures or objects such as a shoelace for a shoe, serve as examples. Iconic gestures are mentioned as perceptually related actions, such as patting a chair to indicate sitting down or making a buzzing sound to represent a bee. The emphasis is on the importance of physical or perceptual resemblance in communication through symbols and gestures.
• 15:00 - 25:00: Tangible Symbols and Their Advantages The chapter discusses the concept of tangible symbols and their advantages, especially for individuals who may struggle with abstract symbols. It highlights Level 5 as a transitional phase where concrete symbols are essential for understanding and can aid in bridging to more abstract concepts. The chapter also touches upon the variation in the speed at which typically developing individuals process these levels, with some skipping Level 5 altogether.
• 25:00 - 35:00: Concept Development and AAC Systems The chapter discusses the transition from pre-symbolic to symbolic communication. It outlines the assessment of various categories of communicative intents, including refusal, obtaining needs, social interaction, and information exchange. At level 5 of this developmental process, behaviors are intentional and directed towards a communication partner with a specific meaning. However, at this stage, communication relies only on concrete symbols and does not yet incorporate abstract symbols.
• 35:00 - 45:00: Intervention Strategies and Goals This chapter discusses various symbols used in intervention strategies, highlighting multiple meaning symbols such as mimicry, iconic gestures, and tangible symbols. Examples include using whole or partial objects, textures, realistic pictures or photos, single color pictures, pieces of familiar packaging, or line drawings to communicate or represent ideas.
• 45:00 - 55:00: Concrete vs Abstract Symbols In this chapter, the distinction between concrete and abstract symbols is explored. At level four, individuals use direct representations of objects, such as offering a box of crackers to indicate they want some. At level five, more abstract symbols are introduced, such as using a piece of a cracker box mounted on cardboard to represent crackers. Additionally, individuals may use simple communication devices featuring concrete objects or pictures to convey their needs or messages.
• 55:00 - 65:00: Communication vs Language The chapter "Communication vs Language" discusses the distinction between communication and language, focusing on the concept of communicative behavior. It classifies behaviors into nine categories, highlighting the progression of individuals through these ranks. Particularly emphasized is Level 5, where individuals employ concrete symbols. At this stage, they are deemed symbolic through the usage of these symbols, though they have not yet advanced to the use of abstract symbols.
• 65:00 - 75:00: Building Vocabulary Chapter "Building Vocabulary" discusses the transitional nature of level five in vocabulary development. Unlike levels four and six, level five serves as a bridge, often allowing individuals to advance directly from level four to level six. Although the communicative intents at level five are aligned with those at level six, there are three additional aspects introduced at this stage that differentiate it from previous levels.

Level V Concrete Symbolic Communication - Part 1 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 foreign concrete symbols we wish to give special thanks to the West Virginia Department of Education Office of federal programs and support special education for funding this project
• 00:30 - 01:00 start by talking about some of the characteristics of level five this level is considered the level of concrete symbols and these are skills that typically develop at 12 to 24 months in conjunction with gestures and words symbolic communication begins at level five symbols represent or stand for something else symbols that represent specific
• 01:00 - 01:30 reference have one-to-one correspondence in other words single meaning they have a close physical relationship to their referent concrete symbols include pictures that are realistic or have a close resemblance to the items objects like a shoelace to represent a shoe iconic gestures something that's perceptually related such as padding a chair to say sit down or making a sound like a buzz to mean a b
• 01:30 - 02:00 lessed individuals skip level five or perhaps move through it so quickly that in typically developing individuals we're not even aware of this level however for some individuals only concrete symbols make sense for others concrete symbols can serve as a bridge to using abstract symbols so we consider level 5 a transitional step for an individual who may have difficulty
• 02:00 - 02:30 moving from pre-symbolic to symbolic communication beginning at this level all categories of communicative intents are assessed all of the items within refuse obtain social and information at level 5 behaviors are intentional purposefully directed toward the communication partner with an intended meaning symbolic with concrete symbols only do not yet include abstract or
• 02:30 - 03:00 multiple meaning symbols so some examples are an individual might mimic the sound of an object or use an iconic gesture or Panama action or objects or they might use tangible symbols that would include whole objects partial objects textures realistic pictures or photos single color pictures a piece of a familiar package like our example in the picture or some line
• 03:00 - 03:30 drawings so at level four an individual might extend a box of crackers to indicate they would like some at level 5 a piece of a Cracker Box mounted on a piece of cardboard would be used as a symbol for cracker also we may see these individuals use a simple at device with two or three dimensional concrete object or picture
• 03:30 - 04:00 symbols as you are aware we have nine categories of communicative behavior and so now there are a number of different behaviors available to our individual up through concrete symbols at level 5 an individual is symbolic using concrete symbols not abstract symbols yet and as I mentioned level
• 04:00 - 04:30 five is considered that transitional level um let's while level five is a transitional level meaning that lots of individuals will progress from levels four directly to level six the communicative intents and level five are the same as those in level six at level five three additional
• 04:30 - 05:00 communicative intents are added requests absent objects names things or people makes comments all 17 of the communicative intents measured by the communication math matrix have the potential for being expressed beginning in level five and this is just a graphic showing you those three additional intents that are added at level five
• 05:00 - 05:30 foreign and as we said the intense the four basic intents are all expressed including all 17 of the items under those four broad categories let's look at some individual profiles let's start with Leanne when we look at this profile we can see that there are items that all of the items are mastered at levels one and two
• 05:30 - 06:00 at level three we have six items mastered one emerging and one not used at level four we have three mastered two emerging and a number not used and then at level five we have two that are emerging so this would be a case where this individual would likely require some intervention at both level four and apparently her team has made the decision that she needs this
• 06:00 - 06:30 transitionary stage this this stage of using concrete symbols to communicate before moving to abstract symbols so her team would need to watch level four because there are a number of items there that will require intervention at level four and then also work at level five because we have skills emerging at level five as well
• 06:30 - 07:00 in Karen's profile you can see we have the first two levels mastered at level three we have six items mastered and two emerging I mean two not used at level four we have six items mastered two emerging and then a number let's look here three four five six items that are not used but we have three items mastered at level five again it is
• 07:00 - 07:30 likely that Karen's team has made the decision that she needed to use concrete symbols rather than jumping directly to abstract symbols so Karen's team will need to work on level four those conventional communication gestures as well as level five concrete symbols foreign let's look at Libby's profile in Libby's
• 07:30 - 08:00 profile we have both concrete symbols and mastered symbols I mean both concrete and Abstract but let's let's go back and let's look at the items so at level one and level two all of those items were surpassed meaning that they were not assessed but they are assumed mastered at level three we have four mastered and four not used at level four
• 08:00 - 08:30 we have three mastered and a number not used and then we have a number of items that are are we that are not used in both levels five and six with just one mastered at each of those levels and two emerging so this team will need to make a decision they're going to need to decide if they're going to focus on concrete symbols at level five or are they going to focus on abstract symbols at level six in in this case the team and looking
• 08:30 - 09:00 at this profile we would of course need to be taking to consideration the sensory and the motor needs so that we would know whether or not we could expect Libby to be able to produce a number of conventional gestures based on her abilities if that's the case this team will need to focus somewhat on level four because we
• 09:00 - 09:30 always want to multimodal system and we like to use those conventional gestures because those are appropriate even as the individual ages however if for some reason those conventional gestures are difficult we may actually want to go back and this would be a team discussion want to go back to level three and focus on the items not used to determine unconventional gestures that Libby might
• 09:30 - 10:00 use she may require that step before she can go to level five or level four or it may be that due to sensory or motor issues that Libby is unable to produce conventional gestures however that would be a team discussion so this team might want to focus on Level 3 or level four as well as making a decision about whether or not level 5 concrete symbols
• 10:00 - 10:30 is the place they want to to transition to next or do they want to transition to abstract symbols and focus on level six level five involves tangible symbol use tangible symbols can be both a mode of communication and or a systematic instructional approach in other words tangible symbols might be used really to
• 10:30 - 11:00 transition an individual to perhaps an abstract symbol level tangible symbols are a useful means of communication for individuals who don't have abstract representation but they can serve as a bridge to abstract symbol systems tangible symbol use does not interfere with the acquisition of speech signs or any other abstract symbol system
• 11:00 - 11:30 tangible symbol systems include three-dimensional symbols like objects and two-dimensional symbols such as photographs and black and white line drawings these are used to support communication and language development tangible symbols provide a receptive and expressive means of communication that allows reference to people objects places Concepts and events beyond the
• 11:30 - 12:00 immediate context tangible symbol systems need to fit the individual's sensory and cognitive abilities and experiences for example a toy bus to represent time to go home may be appropriate for sighted individual but not for an individual who is blind and who has never seen a bus for a person who is blind a textured symbol matching the feel of the bus seat
• 12:00 - 12:30 may be more meaningful when considering the use of tangible symbols you'll want to make sure you write the intended message clearly on the symbol to clarify the intent for the communication partner you also want to consider the physical ability of the individual to explore and manipulate tangible symbols of course tangible symbols that are tactile must be selected from the
• 12:30 - 13:00 individual's perspective so you need to think about what the individual is engaging with tactily in order to design those symbols tangible symbols should be displayed to meet the individual's learning needs so you'll need to know how you're going to make them available to the individual in a calendar box on a communication board in a book in a binder separated by categories or on a place that the symbol represents you
• 13:00 - 13:30 have lots of choices in terms of where you're going to locate your symbols there are some advantages to using tangible symbols several symbols can be used together to compose a message message so you can actually combine several tangible symbols to create a longer message tangible symbols provide a Continuum of communication options to the individual ranging from identical objects to line
• 13:30 - 14:00 drawings they make relatively low Demand on the individual's cognitive memory and representational skills and only require recognition from an array of symbols that are permanent use of a tangible symbol requires only a simple motor response from the individual such as pointing touching picking up extending or looking at the symbol to make the message clear and the size of the symbol may be reduced over
• 14:00 - 14:30 time to make them more portable there are also some disadvantages to tangible symbol systems tangible symbols are not a conventional communication method and may not be understood by all communication Partners or used consistently with the individual artificially Associated objects may not be easily understood and associated with reference by some communication partners for example a communication partner
• 14:30 - 15:00 might not know that amounted X means no or that a mounted piece of a mat used by the individual uh it's maybe used by the individual at Circle time or a mounted piece of a handle is used to represent bathroom the other disadvantage is that sometimes whole objects are not real portable it's important to think about the difference between cues and symbols
• 15:00 - 15:30 cues like touch cues and object cues that are discussed in the essential strategies module are used for receptive communication cues let the individual know what is expected of them while symbols can be used for both receptive so to enhance receptive communication and then also for expressive communication so symbols represent an event an action
• 15:30 - 16:00 an object a person a place and can be used to communicate about the event action object person or place foreign so in this Photograph this young man is using an object and he's actually using that object to let his mother know that he wants to go in the car
• 16:00 - 16:30 object cues are a little different than tangible symbols mounted objects become a symbol it helps the individual distinguish distinguish when the object is an object or when the object becomes a symbol we often think about using symbols in a hierarchy so to represent the concept of drink using a cup a whole object could be used
• 16:30 - 17:00 the cup a part of an object perhaps the handle of a cup or an artificially Associated object perhaps a piece of plastic similar to the plastic used in the cup look let's talk a little about concept development the foundation presentation goes into more depth however as a
• 17:00 - 17:30 reminder we want to talk a little bit about Concepts in this example an example of a concept would be it eats as in the picture the giraffe is eating versus I eat well the skill is feeding the giraffe it's important to build Concepts while providing vocabulary for individuals concepts are how we connect meaning to
• 17:30 - 18:00 objects events and people and they provide a foundation for communication and literacy they also provide the framework for an individual to organize information introducing and building vocabulary within the context of Concepts supports the individual's ability to understand use and retain the symbols so look at the vocabulary that you are teaching and think about how you might
• 18:00 - 18:30 group The tangible symbols into conceptual categories one example might be core vocabulary versus personal vocabulary remember that Concepts the concepts can be classified by complexity the least complex concepts are concrete Concepts and they relate to objects or
• 18:30 - 19:00 things that are tangible or can be seen touched held smell heard or tasted while semi-concrete Concepts relate to an action a color a position or something that can be demonstrated but not necessarily held in one's hand abstract concepts are great out here because at level five they are likely to be beyond the individual's ability
• 19:00 - 19:30 let's watch a video see how he lays it out
• 19:30 - 20:00 it's okay what's a new activity don't um see how he puts it on the one it matches though oh good job your turn
• 20:00 - 20:30 Boston you do it you catch him again yes good job
• 20:30 - 21:00 this video shows a young man who is deafblind with limited vision and hearing and is in a classroom with other students with significant disabilities you can clearly hear another student vocalizing during the activity working with him is his intervener who is a specially trained paraprofessional the student is learning the concept same and different through an activity of matching socks the intervener targets signs for the words where same
• 21:00 - 21:30 indifferent and sock foreign we may be thinking about using an augmentative and alternative communication system alternate forms of communication may need to be part of the intervention plan when considering an AAC system you will
• 21:30 - 22:00 need to be thinking about you may need to be thinking about switch placement or positioning of the individual also of course you have to consider the mobility and range of motion and the individual's hearing and vision and and of course using age-appropriate activities some examples of AAC systems and symbols you might be using would include concrete two or three-dimensional
• 22:00 - 22:30 symbols and then you would match the Voice output request with the concrete symbols at this level the individual would need to have an understanding of that one-to-one referent in other words understand that an object symbol refers to an object or a picture symbol refers to a particular object or activity and
• 22:30 - 23:00 you might use tangible symbols or pictures or textures on a Voice output device here are some examples of some symbols that you might be using they could be object symbols or picture symbols or pictures paired with an object and of course it is always beneficial if the item is labeled so the communication partner knows what the symbol stands for
• 23:00 - 23:30 here are some other examples using Voice output devices they can be something simple with switches paired with pictures or objects or an app on an iPad or iPhone or it could be an introductory Voice output device such as a go talk or a cheap talk
• 23:30 - 24:00 foreign you may remember that the try Focus model was developed in working with children who are deaf-blind but as you will see it supports all individuals with complex communication needs remember all three the individual the partner in the environment come together to create communication the funnel represents the critical aspects of the individual that must be
• 24:00 - 24:30 considered for successful intervention if the individual isn't available to learn doesn't have a trusting relationship with a partner or if there are fragments in their incidental learning or concepts missing or distorted then these would require explicit instruction on the partner's part or a re-engineering of the environment familiar partners and environments
• 24:30 - 25:00 facilitate more effective communication because the individual will likely be less anxious or nervous feel less stress be uh be more comfortable asking to take a break decrease negative behaviors and increase positive behaviors and participate more readily remember Partners will need to have a
• 25:00 - 25:30 positive attitude respect the individual watch and respond to symbol approximation reinforce by responding appropriately to the message model the correct abstract symbol expand and extend vocabulary through meaningful use of abstract symbols going from the known perhaps concrete symbols to the unknown of abstract symbols and then eventually to introduce abstract symbol combinations
• 25:30 - 26:00 you'll want to increase communication opportunities with multiple partners including peers and maintain a responsive environment and of course use data to drive the individual's communication plan as we discuss intervention strategies keep in mind that to promote concrete symbol communication it is essential to provide supportive environments use
• 26:00 - 26:30 activities that are preferred and motivating to the individual and have responsive partners foreign hopefully by this point you have reviewed the essential strategies module if you have not please do so these essential strategies listed above routines wait time prompt hierarchy receptive communication touch keys and object cues are critical for this level
• 26:30 - 27:00 as well as others we are going to review in this module let's begin by thinking about the overarching goals for an individual who is in level five first we have to teach that one-to-one correspondence so the individual understands the relationship between the concrete symbol and its referent we also have to teach concrete symbols
• 27:00 - 27:30 across all communicative intents those four broad categories that we know at this level are broken into 17 specific intents we need to expand vocabulary and model two or three word or symbol sequencing so that we'll be able to move the individual into level seven of language and transition to more abstract levels
• 27:30 - 28:00 moving from objects to pictures concrete pictures to abstract or multiple meaning pictures or perhaps gestures to sign language in this graphic or this picture Noah brings his shoe which is his concrete symbol to his mother over time this has become his word for I want to go for a ride in the Jeep
• 28:00 - 28:30 his mother was busy when he asked the first time so then he added facial expressions to beg for the Jeep ride let's look at intervention principles for level five it's important to brought to provide many opportunities to use symbols in meaningful motivating activities successful use of concrete symbols are
• 28:30 - 29:00 more likely to occur in the context of Highly preferred activities as new symbols are introduced remember to be responsive and acknowledge all communicative intents including refusals physical access to symbols is really important and must be established at this level and maintained and remember to use speech when modeling along with the individual's mode of communication whether it will be signs or pictures or
• 29:00 - 29:30 objects we can't forget that behavior is communication negative behaviors may be well established at this level and need to be replaced with a more acceptable alternate form the alternative form must be as easy and understandable for the individual to use as the negative behavior the team needs to determine a plan to select introduce and teach the
• 29:30 - 30:00 use of the conventional communication form which will replace the negative behavior wisely choose behaviors to respond to and reinforce self-injurious Behavior often is the most challenging Behavior to address Partners must stop this Behavior as quickly as possible but we want to cut we want to remember that the individual then learns I get attention and therefore the replacement Behavior must
• 30:00 - 30:30 be ready if the team is concerned with negative behaviors make sure you have a contingency plan in place for how to address the negative behaviors let's think about some ways to decide to design instruction to promote progress they would include things like model and expand vocabulary introduce and model sequencing increased number of communication
• 30:30 - 31:00 partners use expectant delay and or time delay increase the number of communication turns model multi multi-symbal combinations increase the number of symbols in an array and increase portability of symbols Target absent and emerging communicative functions change to more conventional or abstract type of symbols a higher level of representation
• 31:00 - 31:30 consider adding meaningful core words generalized symbol use to new partners and environments and of course transition to multi-symbal combinations let's look at some examples of symbol systems here you will see an e-tran in the top left corner with picture symbols and then you see a calendar that's using
• 31:30 - 32:00 object symbols next on the right are concrete picture symbols and at the bottom you have some pictures and object symbols combined we often think of teaching symbols using a hierarchy to move from concrete to abstract symbols here is an example of a hierarchy you might use to make that transition
• 32:00 - 32:30 first you would use the object as part of the activity it represents then the OBS an identical object too you would use an identical object to the one that is used as part of the activity then you would use a similar object that is not identical to the object that is used of the activity next you might use a part of an object
• 32:30 - 33:00 and then a full-size color drawing of the object and then transition to a full-size black and white drawing of the object or a reduced size color drawing of the object next move to a reduced size black and white drawing of an object and then to an abstract or multiple meaning symbol and lastly printed words we can look at a similar kind of a hierarchy for transit for transitioning
• 33:00 - 33:30 from objects to sign language sign language is considered an abstract communication system so an individual using sign language would actually be in level six but you may have an individual who needs to transition from an from using objects to using signs so let's look at a hierarchy to allow us to
• 33:30 - 34:00 do that so first you would Panama movement with the object as part of the activity it represents so you might have an actual cup and Panama drinking is part of the activity then you would pantomime the movement with an object identical to the one that you're using as part of the activity so one cup is presented with movement and the other is used during the activity next you might pantomime the movement
• 34:00 - 34:30 with an object similar to but not identical to the one that is used as part of the activity it represents so two cups not identical one is presented with movement and the other is present the other is used during the activity and next you would Panama the movement without an object so the hand movement mimicking drinking from a cup since the individual will not at this level be able to actually use the direct
• 34:30 - 35:00 sign the other items in this hierarchy are grayed out Binger in 2020 identified four phases of graphic symbol development a level five individual would fall within the first phase that she identified and that's early symbol
• 35:00 - 35:30 Productions focusing on pragmatics or communicative intent and semantic meaning or vocabulary indicating that at level five an individual would need to focus on broadening their vocabulary across multiple communicative intents foreign let's talk about intervention with
• 35:30 - 36:00 concrete symbols first you would begin with symbols that represent highly preferred items or activities and you would begin with meaningful symbols if the individual does not have an indication or does not indicate understanding of any symbol you would select a symbol based on their sensory sensory skills and pair it with a highly preferred item
• 36:00 - 36:30 or activity you want to consider various access methods whether it will be touch or look or handing an item and then of course the partner must consistently respond to the symbols in this picture the child is learning the sign alligator during his virtual speech therapy session notice like all kids he begins with an approximation and later he will learn to adjust it to have the correct sign
• 36:30 - 37:00 foreign as we discussed earlier it may be beneficial to use conceptual grouping when teaching new vocabulary so that the individual has an organization system for the vocabulary that is being taught so this is an example of a chart you might use to
• 37:00 - 37:30 to categorize the vocabulary that you're teaching on the left hand side we have the concrete symbols and then on the right hand side we have the the conceptual category so for example for the conceptual category of an abstract symbol or a even a concrete symbol for go
• 37:30 - 38:00 um we might be thinking about go on the bus or go to recess or go to music or go to the cafeteria or go to the park so we might be able to use a variety of concrete symbols paired with this abstract or concrete symbol for go and that may help the individual understand the use of the new vocabulary
• 38:00 - 38:30 items um let's look at the second one so we may have concrete symbols for swinging bouncing eating music and specials and we may be teaching the more abstract concept of more but we can teach that with all of these particular concrete symbols meaning more music or more bouncing more swinging more eating or more specials
• 38:30 - 39:00 so you teach the individual the concrete symbol while introducing the concepts two-word symbol usage doesn't begin until level seven at level five the goal is really to introduce the concept while teaching and using the concrete symbols so that they the conception that conceptually will understand the vocabulary that they may not be able to combine until later on
• 39:00 - 39:30 let's look at a strategy for moving toward abstract symbols the general strategy would be that the partner would pair the known symbol with a more abstract representation in that in the hierarchy usually doing that within existing routines and providing lots of opportunities to use the new symbol
• 39:30 - 40:00 so you might be moving an object moving from an object to a similar object or a similar object to a part of an object or part of an object to a photograph or a picture to a line drawing or a line drawing to a word it wouldn't matter you would pick which one of those you were working toward but you would pair the known symbol with the new symbol the targeted Behavior or the response of the individual would be that they would
• 40:00 - 40:30 demonstrate understanding of the new symbol make choices or participate in an activity or touch or gaze at the desired item and the partner would respond by appropriate would respond appropriately according to the individual's intent and the outcome would be that the individual learns to communicate at a more abstract level across the level five intents foreign
• 40:30 - 41:00 why do we want to move to abstract symbols well abstract symbols provide the means for creating language not just communication they represent core vocabulary they can be the foundation for creating multi-word utterances and they provide the individual with frequently used vocabulary that are not easily picturable they're available in pre-designed sets
• 41:00 - 41:30 thereby decreasing the the time needed to actually create the symbols and they facilitate the use of electronic AAC devices foreign so we just mentioned the communication versus language let's take a look at that first let's look at a definition of communication communication is the active process of
• 41:30 - 42:00 exchanging information and ideas communication involves both expression and understanding forms of expression may include personalized movements gestures objects vocalizations verbalization signs pictures symbols printed words and output from augmentative and alternative communication devices language is a complex and dynamic system
• 42:00 - 42:30 of conventional symbols that is used in various modes for thought and communication it is a rule-governed behavior it is defined as the comprehensive comprehension and or use of spoken written and or other communication symbol system so language is actually a combination of symbols that is Rule governed
• 42:30 - 43:00 and complex we need to keep that in mind because if our goal is language we need to provide a foundation of vocabulary that is that will lead to the development of language in building vocabulary we often start with personalized vocabulary words that
• 43:00 - 43:30 are highly motivating and meaningful to the individual words that the individual would want to say that can occur several times a day that are available in the individual's environment and are likely to be nouns or highly preferred activities however we also know that core vocabulary is important core is the vocabulary that makes up 80
• 43:30 - 44:00 percent or more of the language that she used from Toddlers through adults it's 250 to 400 depending on the the resource you look at of the most commonly used vocabulary across environments and it includes action words like want and put and nouns like things stuff and people and pronouns like I me my mind and demonstratives like this and that and
• 44:00 - 44:30 adverbs like here and there but when you select vocabulary that First vocabulary should be personalized the more motivating the words the better the chances of success these should be motivating to the individual and not just what is available or what the team members want them to say it should be what the individual would want to say and once that initial vocabulary is
• 44:30 - 45:00 established then it is time to establish the core vocabulary this young man's family was driving in the car and the child started pointing and vocalizing the parents realized he'd seen the e as part of the bridge which is the first letter of his name they'd been working on name recognition with him so they stopped and had him sit on the E and and took his picture just a
• 45:00 - 45:30 good example of that highly motivating vocabulary foreign