TEACHING NONVOCAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS TO MULTIHANDICAPPED RETARDED ADULTS¹

Abstract

A training program for teaching communication skills to nonvocal retarded adults was evaluated in three experiments. The four subjects were severely disabled physically and had never demonstrated functional speech. Each person was taught to use either a prosthetic head pointer or to point with a hand in using a communication board for expressive language. Following baseline in Experiment I, coordination training was implemented, consisting of instructions, manual guidance, praise, feedback, and practice. Each person demonstrated a higher frequency of accurate pointing to designated areas on the board during coordination training than during baseline. In Experiment II, identification training, consisting of instructions, praise, feedback, and practice was introduced after baseline. Subjects pointed more frequently to specific word-photograph combinations to correspond to descriptive verbal labels after introduction of identification training. Social validation measures in Experiment III indicated that the communication board skills were functional in providing a method of expressing a choice of a leisure activity to people who previously could not understand the subjects' communication attempts. The acquired skills maintained throughout a seven-week followup period.

Teaching Persons With Profound Multiple Handicaps: A Review of the Effects of Behavioral Research

“…Steinberg, Pegnatore, and Hill (1983) Reid and Hurlbut (1977) in their investigation that involved teaching 4 persons to use communication boards. However, the participants were selected from a large group of nonambulatory individuals with profound or severe mental retardation based on caregiver recommendations that these particular individuals possessed the greatest intellectual potential of all the clients.…”

Assessing Food Preferences Among Persons With Profound Mental Retardation: Providing Opportunities to Make Choices

“…These procedures are necessary because of the impaired motor and communication skills ofpersons with severe disabilities (e.g., profound mental retardation) that prohibit the expression of preferences in a manner typically used by nonhandicapped persons (Mithaug & Hanawalt, 1978;Reid & Hurlbut, 1977). Also, traditional means of identifying client preferences and reinforcers, such as the subjective opinion of caregivers, often do not predict what clients will actually do when provided with a choice-making opportunity (Favell & Cannon, 1976;Green et al, 1988).…”

NONVOCAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN ADOLESCENTS WITH SEVERE PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: BLISSYMBOL VERSUS ICONIC STIMULUS FORMATS

“…Second, since the motor topography used with a communication board will often remain constant for a given individual, the range of communication that can be differentiated by the "listener" will be limited to those language symbols (e.g., words, pictures) that can be correctly identified by the "speaker." Thus, both response and stimulus variables are of particular importance during the course of communication board training, and although Reid and Hurlbut (1977) provided an extensive analysis of the former, the present study attempted to address the latter.…”

“…However, in spite of this attractive feature of communication boards and the fact that a number of languages have been developed in conjunction with their use (Bliss, 1965;Clark, Davies, & Woodcock, 1974;Fristoe & Lloyd, 1978;McNaughton, 1976), very little experimental research has been conducted to identify variables that promote the acquisition of functional language by the severely handicapped (Elder & Bergman, 1978;Hill, Campagna, Long, Munch, & Naecher, 1968;Reid & Hurlbut, 1977).…”

“…First, an appropriate response that can be discriminated must be identified, as well as shaped to the point where it occurs reliably. Reid and Hurlbut (1977), for example, examined the use of instructions, praise, and manual guidance in developing pointing with either the hand or head, first to arbitrarily selected "target" areas of a communication board, and later to photographs depicting leisure areas around the institution. Second, since the motor topography used with a communication board will often remain constant for a given individual, the range of communication that can be differentiated by the "listener" will be limited to those language symbols (e.g., words, pictures) that can be correctly identified by the "speaker."…”