Preschool-aged children have difficulty constructing and interpreting simple utterances composed of graphic symbols

Abstract

Children who require augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems while they are in the process of acquiring language face unique challenges because they use graphic symbols for communication. In contrast to the situation of typically developing children, they use different modalities for comprehension (auditory) and expression (visual). This study explored the ability of three- and four-year-old children without disabilities to perform tasks involving sequences of graphic symbols. Thirty participants were asked to transpose spoken simple sentences into graphic symbols by selecting individual symbols corresponding to the spoken words, and to interpret graphic symbol utterances by selecting one of four photographs corresponding to a sequence of three graphic symbols. The results showed that these were not simple tasks for the participants, and few of them performed in the expected manner - only one in transposition, and only one-third of participants in interpretation. Individual response strategies in some cases lead to contrasting response patterns. Children at this age level have not yet developed the skills required to deal with graphic symbols even though they have mastered the corresponding spoken language structures.

Language Development of Individuals Who Require Aided Communication: Reflections on State of the Science and Future Research Directions

“…Although single-symbol output is commonly reported, children using aided communication also combine symbols. When more than one element is produced, simple clause structures have been reported as dominating (Sutton, Soto et al, 2002), and within these simple structures, key elements may be omitted (Binger & Light, 2008;Blischak & Lloyd, 1996;Bruno & Trembath, 2006;Sutton, Trudeau, Morford, Rios, & Poirier, 2010), attracting use of the term telegraphic (Soto, Hartmann, & Wilkins, 2006). Elements with relatively low semantic and perceptual salience, such as articles, prepositions, auxiliaries and obligatory infinitives, are frequently missing, as in the following examples: THEY SINGING (Binger et al, 2011); I CHANGE SCHOOLS SEPTEMBER (Lund & Light, 2007b); and "Do you want watch" (Lund & Light, 2003).…”

Teaching Graphic Symbol Combinations to Children with Limited Speech During Shared Story Reading

“…Although there is support for the influence of receptive language skills on the ability of children with and without disabilities to produce graphic symbol sequences (Sutton et al, 2010;Trudeau et al, 2007;Wilkinson, Romski, & Sevcik, 1994), the influence of this parameter on the learning process has not yet been formally determined, and future studies may be designed to investigate this relationship.…”

Dynamic Assessment for 3- and 4-Year-Old Children Who Use Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Evaluating Expressive Syntax

“…In a similar manner, of the 37 cases attempted during the intervention stage (i.e., three or four targets for each of the 10 participants), the preschoolers achieved mastery for 32 (86%). Given previous documentation of the challenges of teaching preschoolers to produce multiword graphic symbol utterances (e.g., Sutton et al, 2010), these results are encouraging and indicate the need to build a body of research to validate effective, efficient intervention techniques for this population.…”

“…Second, focusing on a range of targets may help determine which particular linguistic structures may be viable at a given point in time. For example, some of the past AAC research in this area has focused on a single type of structure for young children-reversible AAO structures (Sutton & Morford, 2008;Sutton et al, 2010). Findings from the current investigation indicate that this structure may be particularly challenging for children compared with other early developing structures.…”

“…Although some studies have indicated that this is a challenging task even for typically developing preschoolers (Sutton, Trudeau, Morford, Rios, & Poirier, 2010), emerging evidence indicates that with appropriate intervention, creating multisymbol messages is an achievable goal for young children using aided AAC (Binger et al, 2008;Binger & Light, 2007;Kent-Walsh, Binger, & Buchanan, 2015).…”