Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) provides many individuals who have little or no functional speech with a means to enter the world of communication. Aided and/or unaided symbols are used as a means of reception and expression to create shared meaning. The selection of an appropriate symbol set/system is vital and iconicity plays a central role in this process. The Western-based symbol set, Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) (Johnson, 1981), is readily available and widely used in South Africa, despite little information existing on its iconicity to South African populations with disabilities. This study aimed to determine the iconicity of Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) for children with English Additional Language (EAL) and intellectual disability. A quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive design was used. Thirty participants between the ages of 12;00 and 15;11 (years; months) with EAL and intellectual disability were required to identify 16 PCS presented thematically on a ‘bed-making’ communication overlay in response to a gloss read out by the researcher. The results indicated that, overall, the 16 PCS were relatively iconic to the participants. The results also indicated that the iconicity of PCS can be manipulated and enhanced and that it can be influenced by other PCS that are used simultaneously on the communication overlay. The reasons for these findings are described. The clinical and theoretical implications of this study’s results are discussed, followed by a critical evaluation of this study and, finally, recommendations for future research are suggested. / Dissertation (Master of Arts)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

The aim of this study was to determine the role of visual language input on PCS sentence construction. Thirty-nine participants were divided into two comparable groups and exposed to two inputs of presentations of PCS to investigate the impact of each input on the sentence construction of the participants. In the SVO input the sequence of buttons was in the normal English word order sequence (Subject-Verb-Object) and in the SOV input the word order was Subject-Object-Verb. Both input groups had to answer six questions by using PCS as well as speech. The findings indicated that the participants did not sequence their output to match the word order of the unfamiliar SOV input. The participants receiving the SOV condition used fewer PCS elements than the participants receiving the SVO condition. The participants receiving the SVO and SOV inputs gave similar spoken answers. Reasons for these findings are discussed, as are the implications for further research. / Dissertation (M (Augmentative and Alternative Communication))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of teaching a picture communication system to students with moderate to severe disabilities using the PECS Phase III application. A multiple probe across participants design was used to conduct the study and evaluate the effectiveness of the training on the PECS Phase III application. The results of the study demonstrated that teaching a picture communication system on an augmentative and alternative communication device is effective in the school setting with young adults with moderate and severe disabilities.

Experiencing and expressing emotions is an essential part of psychological well-being. It is for this reason that most graphic symbol sets used in the field of AAC include an array of symbols depicting emotions. However, to date, very limited research has been done on children’s ability to recognise and use these symbols to express feelings within different cultural contexts. The purpose of the current study was to describe and compare Afrikaans and Sepedi speaking grade R children’s choice of graphic symbols when depicting four basic emotions, i.e. happy; sad; afraid; and angry. After ninety participants (44 Afrikaans and 46 Sepedi speaking) passed a pre-assessment task, they were exposed 24 emotions vignettes. Participants had to indicate the intensity the protagonist in the story would experience. The next step was for the participants to choose a graphic symbol from a 16 matrix overlay which they thought best represented the symbol and intensity. The results indicated a significant difference at a 1% level between the two groups’ selection of expected symbols to represent emotions. Afrikaans speaking participants more often chose expected symbols than Sepedi speaking participants to represent different basic emotions. Sepedi speaking participants made use of a larger variety of symbols to represent the emotions. Participants from both language groups most frequently selected expected symbols to represent happy followed by those for angry and afraid with expected symbols for sad selected least frequently. Except for a significant difference at the 1% level for happy no significant differences were present between the intensities selected by the different language groups for the other three basic emotions. No significant differences between the two gender groups’ choices of expected symbols to represent emotions or between the intensities selected by the different gender groups were observed. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / Unrestricted

I många utvecklingsländer finns en begränsad tillgång på utvecklade AKK-system (Alant, 1999) och ofta även en okunskap kring möjligheterna att arbeta med kommunikationsproblem (Marshall, 1997). I föreliggande studie genomförs intervention i alternativ och kompletterande kommunikation (AKK) för två deltagare med cerebral pares på ett dagcenter i Kilimanjaroregionen, Tanzania. Syftet i föreliggande interventionsstudie är att genom intervention studera och utveckla de i mätsituationerna responsiva talakterna att påkalla uppmärksamhet för att inleda interaktion, acceptera och avfärda samt upprätthålla och avsluta interaktion. Detta sker med hjälp av begreppen ja och nej för att acceptera och avfärda, liksom mer och mindre för att upprätthålla och avsluta interaktion. Studien följer en single subjekt design och insatsen utgörs av två interventionsperioder, bestående av direkt intervention med deltagarna samt utbildning och fortlöpande handledning av personal. Resultaten visar att deltagarna i varierande grad lärde sig att påkalla uppmärksamhet för att inleda interaktion, acceptera och avfärda samt upprätthålla och avsluta interaktion. Det observerades även att deltagarna i högre grad utförde performativa talakter utanför den styrda testsituationen. Områden som vidare diskuteras är bland annat deltagarnas kommunikativa handlingar utifrån The Communication Matrix där en utveckling från prelingvistiska uttrycksätt till användandet av abstrakta symboler synliggjordes hos deltagarna. / In several developing countries there are a limited supply of developed AAC systems (Alant, 1999) whereas a lack of knowledge about the possibilities of working with communication problems (Marshall, 1997). The present study is an intervention study about the introduction of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for two participants with cerebral palsy at a day-care centre in the Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania. The purpose of the intervention study was to develop responsive speech acts to attract attention to initiate interaction, accept and reject interaction, as well as maintain and terminate interaction. This was done using the terms yes and no to accept and reject, and more and less to continue and terminate interaction. The study followed a single subject design consisting of two intervention periods, where direct intervention with the participants and continuing training and guidance for the staff occurred. The results show that the participants in varying degrees, has learned to attract attention to initiate interaction, accept and reject interaction as well as to maintain and terminate interaction. It was also observed that the participants learned to use the performative speech acts outside the controlled test situation. An area further discussed is the participants’ communicative acts as shown in The Communication Matrix, which displayed a development from pre linguistic models of expression to use the abstract symbols.

The structure of graphic symbol utterance constructed by children with typical development and also children with little or no functional speech often differs considerably from spoken utterances. Whether the structure of graphic symbol utterances constructed by these two groups is influenced by similar factors is as yet unknown, as a systematic comparison between the two groups of children has not been conducted. This study aimed to investigate and compare the graphic symbol utterances arranged by children with little or no functional speech with those arranged by their typically developing peers when they were matched according to receptive language age. The utterances were analysed in terms of three variables, namely content, order and intelligibility. The results indicated that children with little or no functional speech do not differ significantly to children with typical development on tasks of graphic symbol utterance construction. The results also indicated that children with higher receptive language age start to use the spoken language word order as a model when arranging graphic symbol utterances more than children with lower receptive language age. The findings suggest that receptive language age plays a role in graphic symbol utterance constructions. The use of structures that do not follow spoken language may be explained by effects of the visual modality. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / Centre for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (CAAC) / unrestricted

This diploma thesis was written in cooperation with the National Pedagogical Museum and Library of J. A. Comenius in Prague. It deals with the vast area of instructive pictures and especially with their potential use in teaching elementary school pupils science, mainly in the second year of elementary schools. The diploma thesis seeks to determine the significance of the instructive picture in its historical perspective, to state whether even nowadays the instructive picture is still a valid teaching aid in teaching of sciences in the educational process. The first, theoretical part of the thesis, the basic concepts concerning the instructive picture, didactic means and the so important psychological approach to perception of pictorial materials are determined. A considerable part of the thesis focuses on the historical development of the school instructive picture in general and on its development in sciences in particular. Also included is a thorough study of the teaching process with the use of rare instructive pictures in the past and the current aims of teaching sciences at present are presented. The empirical part of the thesis uses a pilot study to study specific modular lessons of the fundaments of humanities and sciences with the use of a selection of relevant instructive pictures in these...