Philip Schweigert

Tangible symbols, tangible outcomes

A 3-year study on the use of tangible symbols (i.e., objects and pictures used as symbols) by 41 children with a variety of handicapping conditions was conducted to follow up on an earlier study by the authors that revealed their utility for children who are deafblind. The vast majority of participants learned to use tangible symbols, allowing them to overcome the restrictions imposed by gestural communication. A number of the participants progressed beyond tangible symbols and learned to use abstract symbol systems, including speech. A few of the participants did not learn to use tangible symbols during the time span available for intervention. Data describing the progress of participants are presented. Participants are grouped according to outcome, and the characteristics of each group are discussed in terms of the communication skills of participants as they began intervention.

Tangible symbols: symbolic communication for individuals with multisensory impairments

Many individuals with multisensory impairments fail to bridge the gap between presymbolic communication and formal language systems such as speech or manual signs. This paper discusses the use of tangible symbols—manipulable symbols (objects or pictures) that bear a clear perceptual relationship to a referent— by individuals who are not able to acquire abstract symbol systems. A sequence of communication development that accommodates the use of tangible symbols is presented, as well as two brief case histories illustrating the acquisition of tangible symbol systems by individuals with multisensory impairments. Finally, data on the progress of nine individuals who were taught to use tangible symbols is presented.

Early communication and microtechnology: Instructional sequence and case studies of children with severe multiple disabilities

Teachers and speech-language pathologists serving children who have dual sensory impairments combined with severe orthopedic impairments are often at a loss as to how to provide effective communication instruction. No systematic approach has been available to guide teachers through the intricacies of what is necessarily a difficult process. This paper describes the results of a 3-year investigation of the use of microtechnology to enable children with dual sensory impairments and severe orthopedic impairments to communicate. We present here an instructional sequence that applies across the wide variety of children who participated in the investigation. Some of these children initially appeared to have no voluntary behavior at all: others were able to produce some intentional motor behaviors, but these were not under any clear stimulus control; while others had some primitive but unreliable means of signalling, such as gross vocalizations. By the end of the project, all of these children had shown an abili...

Analyzing the Communication Environment to Increase Functional Communication

Many students with severe and multiple disabilities demonstrate severe communication impairments. Efforts to improve communication in these students often embrace a “natural environment” or “milieu” approach, embedding opportunities to communicate within natural, functional activities across the entire schedule of daily activities. In reality, functional activities differ greatly in the degree to which they foster communication. This article describes an environmental inventory designed to allow a teacher or speech-language pathologist to analyze the extent to which a specific activity encourages functional communication for a particular student. The inventory may be used to compare different activities across the students day or to track the improvement of specific activities that initially may show little communicative value for the student. Reliability and validity data for the inventory are presented along with a case study of its use to monitor and guide improvements in a functional activity to increase communication by a young child with multiple disabilities.

Use of microswitch technology to facilitate social contingency awareness as a basis for early communication skills

Individuals with vision and hearing impairments in combination with severe orthopaedic impairments often fail to demonstrate any clear awareness of contingent relationships between their own behaviors and environmental outcomes. Without contingency awareness, it is not possible to engage in intentional communicative behavior. A single case design is presented involving a deaf-blind child with severe orthopaedic impairments who demonstrated no contingency awareness. The study was designed to examine the use of microswitch manipulanda to facilitate the awareness of social contingencies as a potential foundation for the development of intentional communicative behavior. Results indicated that the child increased the targeted motor behavior (activating a microswitch) under conditions involving the delivery of social contingencies, but not under conditions involving the delivery of nonsocial contingencies. Subsequent clinical applications are described to illustrate the direct impact of these findings on proce...

Assessment and instruction of hands-on problem-solving and object interaction skills in children who are deafblind

have severe disabilities, object interactions may provide especially revealing evidence of their cognitive development,. This article describes the development in the United States of assessment instruments designed to evaluate the object interaction and problem-solving or children who are deafbiind. The instruments are designed to assess the development of simple object manipulation, the functional use of objects and ways to gain access to desired objects. They allow the evaluation of child skills, the development of instructional objectives and the measurement of developing mastery of the physical environment. Two studies ’