Drawing from developmental and behaviourist perspectives, a theoretical base is described for designing intervention and assessment strategies to teach and monitor picto-graphic symbol use for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). These strategies were investigated with students with severe intellectual disability. An intervention strategy was developed that presented symbol use, symbol discrimination and symbol-object relationships as a skill cluster in a functional context. The effects of the intervention were examined through a multiple baseline across settings research design. The study explored the problem of generalisation of symbol use by examining generalisation from use in choice-making to use in labeling, and to symbol comprehension. The results provide a limited validation of naturalistic intervention strategies to teach AAC use to this particular population. They suggest that naturalistic teaching strategies have potential to be used successfully with students from the population of interest to teach both functional use of a communication board displaying picto-graphic symbols and more generalised symbol skills. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235762 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Stephenson, J. R., University of Western Sydney, Nepean, Faculty of Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Source | THESIS_FE_XXX_Stephenson_J.xml |
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