This paper aims to illustrate how an innovative voting system has been developed to allow AAC users, their therapists, carers and families show their degree of acceptance for newly developed symbols and their referents. The approach, taking a participatory model of research, occurs via an online symbol management system using a set of criteria that provide instant feedback to the developers and the project team. Scores and comments regarding the symbols are collated and where a majority vote has occurred, symbols are added to the Arabic Symbol Dictionary with lexical entries in both Arabic and English.
This paper discusses the development of an Arabic Symbol Dictionary for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) users, their families, carers, therapists and teachers as well as those who may benefit from the use of symbols to enhance literacy skills. With a requirement for a bi-lingual dictionary, a vocabulary list analyzer has been developed to evaluate similarities and differences in word frequencies from a range of word lists in order to collect suitable AAC lexical entries. An online bespoke symbol management has been created to hold the lexical entries alongside specifically designed symbols which are then accepted via a voting system using a series of criteria. Results to date have highlighted how successful these systems can be when encouraging participation along with the need for further research into the development of personalised context sensitive core vocabularies.
There are several commercial or freely available symbol sets for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) use; all these symbol sets have the same issue when trying to use them in a multiple lingual setting. Symbol Dragoman is a Web based application that aims to allow the user who has no spoken language and uses pictograms or images to communicate in Arabic or English. It combines chosen 'symbols' in any way they want to produce a sentence that can be read or heard in both languages with the potential of offering any combination of languages in the future.
This paper explores the development of a freely available online Arabic symbol dictionary that will have a wide range of culturally, linguistically and environmentally appropriate symbols leading to an increase in Arabic language skills for those dependent on communication devices and encouraging greater cultural understanding by those therapists working with these children and adults. The use of social media and online systems has provided for participatory research to be undertaken between researchers, therapists and Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) users to ensure the development of meaningful symbols and a core vocabulary. Bespoke systems have also promoted the building of a synergistic team able to respond speedily to users' needs, data collection and analysis as well as collaboratively solving problems that arise.
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