Texas School for the Blind & Visually
Impaired Outreach Programs
www.tsbvi.edu
512-454-8631
Superintendent William Daugherty
Outreach Director Cyral Miller
Texas Focus: Learning From Near to Far
Tangible Symbols, or Are They?
Strategies for Determining Meaningful Tangible
Symbols for Your Student
Time: 8:30-10:00 AM
Date: June 11, 2010
Presented by
Philip D. Schweigert, Instructional Lead
New Mexico School for the Blind & Visually
Impaired
Developed for
Texas School for the Blind & Visually
Impaired Outreach Programs
Texas Focus Parent Pre-Conference: Connecting From Near And Far - Schweigert
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Tangible Symbols, or Are They?
Strategies for Determining Meaningful Tangible Symbols
for Your Student
Philip D. Schweigert
New Mexico School for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Albuquerque, NM
PROPERTIES OF TANGIBLE SYMBOLS
 Iconic: clear perceptual relationship to referent
 Permanent: lower memory demands
 Manipulable: make communication exchange literal
 Simple Motor Response: required to indicate symbol
 Tactually Discriminable
TYPES OF TANGIBLE SYMBOLS
(Rowland and Schweigert  2000)
Levels of Representation: Identical Object
Referent: Raisins, Bolt
Symbol: A few raisins glued to a piece of cardboard
A bolt is shrink-wrapped onto cardboard backing
Levels of Representation: Partial or Associated Object
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Referent: Shoe, Bicycle, Car/Out, Eating
Symbol: Shoelace, Handle Grip, Car Key, Spoon
Levels of Representation: One or Two Shared Features
Referent: Pretzel, Multicolored Vinyl, Therapy Ball
Symbol: Thermoform of pretzel (shares shape & size with referent)
Wood block covered with multicolored vinyl
Shares texture and color with referent; for blind individuals
only one feature <texture> is shared
Levels of Representation: Artificial Association
Referent: Work Table, Cafeteria
Symbol: Ribbed rubber mat is attached to table: a small piece of the
mat serves as the symbol
Wooden apple shape is attached to cafeteria door: a similar
shape serves as the symbol
Levels of Representation: Photographs
Referent: Self-Explanatory
Symbol: Self-Explanatory
Levels of Representation: Line Drawings
Referent: Self-Explanatory
Symbol: Self-Explanatory
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“TANGIBLE” MEANS . . .
Physically Tangible
Conceptually Tangible to the INDIVIDUAL USER (eye of the beholder)
TANGIBLE SYMBOLS INSTRUCTION KEY ELEMENTS
 Readiness
 Motivation
 Indicating Response
 Comprehension
 Promoting Progress
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Preintentional Behavior
The child’s behavior is not under his own control. It is in reaction to
things (such as feeling hungry or wet or sleepy). Parents interpret the
child’s state from his general behaviors, such as body movements,
facial expressions and sounds.
Intentional Behavior
The child’s behavior is now intentional (under the child’s control), but
she does not understand that “If I do this, Mom or Dad will do that for
me”–in other words she does not communicate intentionally yet.
Parents continue to interpret the child’s needs and desires from her
behavior, such as body movements, facial expressions, vocalizations
and eye gaze.
Unconventional Communication
The child uses pre-symbolic behaviors intentionally to express his
needs and desires to other people. They are called “unconventional”
because they are not socially acceptable for us to use as we grow older:
they include body movements, vocalizations, facial expressions and
simple gestures (such as tugging on people).
Conventional Communication
The child uses pre-symbolic behaviors intentionally to express her
needs and desire to other people. “Conventional” gestures include
behaviors such as pointing and nodding the head “yes”. We continue to
use conventional gestures as adults to accompany our language. Note
that many of these gestures (and especially pointing) require good
visual skills and may not be appropriate for children with severe vision
impairment.
Concrete Symbols
Symbols physically resemble what they represent in a way that is
obvious to the child—they look like, feel like, move like or sound like
what they represent. Concrete symbols include picture symbols,
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objects used as symbols (such as a shoelace to represent “shoe”),
certain “iconic” gestures (such as patting a chair to say “sit down”) and
sounds (such as making a buzzing sound to refer to a bee). Children
with severe physical impairments may access picture and object
symbols through the use of a mechanical device or by pointing,
touching or eye gaze.
Abstract Symbols
The child uses abstract symbols such as speech, manual signs, or
Brailled or printed words. These symbols do not look, feel, or sound
like what they represent. They are used one at a time.
Language
The child combines symbols (any sort of symbols) into ordered two- or
three-symbol combinations (“want juice”, “me want juice”), according to
grammatical rules. The child understands that the meaning of word
combinations may differ depending upon how the symbols are
arranged.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF INTENTIONAL
COMMUNICATION
 Persistence
 Repetition
 Alternating Gaze (body orientation, leaning toward)
 Changing the signal used
 Awaiting a response
 Terminating the signal when responded to
 Indicating satisfaction or dissatisfaction to response (Wetherby&
Prizant 1989)
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RECEPTIVE COMMUNICATION
Sensory Mode and Form to which Learner Responds
Visual (Motor / Gestural)
Tactile
 Proximity of person
 Handling
 Faces
 Touch
 Eye contact
 Specific touch cues
 Facial expressions
 Hand-in-hand signs
 Gestures
 Visual regard
 Manual signs
 Sign language
Auditory (Vocal)
 Any vocalization
 Speech in general
Visual and/or Tactile (Tangible
Cues)
 Environmental cues
 Object symbols
 Picture symbols
 Abstract symbol systems
(Braille, BLISS)
 Intonation/ register stress of
speech
 Specific words
 Spoken language
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AWARENESS
Description: Reacts to People and may begin to orient towards them
Example: Quiets fusses stiffens when engaged by another person May
begin to turn or lean toward them when engaged by them
ANTICIPATION
Description: Orients toward people and may begin to attend to their
communicative behavior
Example: Quiets and orient to, touching or tactually exploring the
person when engaged. Shows general anticipation such as smiling,
reaching toward, when engaged by another person
RECOGNITION
Description: Attends to another's communication and responds to their
specific behaviors and intents
Example: Shows specific response associated with a specific cue from
other person such as leans forward when presented with a bib, or
bounces when assisted to touch the therapy ball
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Figure 1 Page from Tangible Symbols Pretest - Part 1
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Figure 2 Page from Tangible Symbols Pretest - Part 1
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Figure 3 Page filled in on Tangible Symbols Pretest - Part 1
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REQUESTING ATTENTION
Does the indicating response you have targeted include a means for the
child to gain your attention?
If not, consider how the child will do this:
 Touch you
 Vocalize
 Approach you
 Raise hand or other gesture toward you
COMPREHENSION:
How do you know that the individual really understands what the
symbols mean?
MORE ABOUT PICTURE RECOGNITION
Some studies have suggested that children first develop the ability to
 Recognize (point and label) picture
 Then interpret them (get information about their world from them
 Finally learn that pictures can be used to represent specific reality
(using them for symbolic communication)
It may be possible to teach someone to use a more abstract symbol
through repeated practice but the task is far easier if the learner
understands the representation inherent in the symbol.
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FAST MAPPING
As the learner begins to acquire vocabulary at a certain level of
symbolic representation new vocabulary may be learned at a faster rate
Moving the learner to a more abstract level too soon rather than
allowing them to develop a meaningful vocabulary at the current level
may preclude this fast mapping.
J.J. Transitions:
•Transition ‘Heads-UP’ (3-5 minutes before)
•Transition Song
•Hand/Show JJ symbol for the current activity and indicate “finished”
•Assist JJ to travel to schedule
•Assist JJ to place symbol for completed activity in “Finished” box
“____ is all done; good job JJ. “
•“What’s Next J.J. “and Assist JJ to go to next symbol (from left) in schedule
•Assist J.J. to get symbol
•“Show Me”.. Assist JJ to show symbol for next activity
“Yeah JJ that’s right! It’s time for ____”
•Travel to corresponding area
•Repeat for each transition
Figure 4 Sample Transitions Routine.
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ASSESSMENT
Assessment of Skills. Indicate if you are conducting an assessment to
determine the learner’s communicative behaviors and intents in the
home and or school environment.
Assessment of Preferences. Indicate if you are investigating what is
motivating to the learner at this time. Often times this is an ongoing part
of instruction.
Symbol Type Probe. If applicable, conduct Tangible Symbols Pretest
Assessment of Environment. Indicate if you are conducting an
analysis of the child’s environment to determine existing and new
supports to learning.
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TEACHING ROUTINE: (CUES, RESPONSES AND
CONSEQUENCES)
Materials/Vocabulary. List the specific materials used in this activity to
teach or practice the target skills.
Array size. Indicate the number of objects presented at one time
Distractors. If appropriate, describe whether the objects other than the
desired one in the array are nothing (unknown), non-preferred or
equally preferred items.
Instructional Format. Describe the manner in which objects are
presented to the learner (e.g. to his left, randomly, with contrasting
backgrounds, one at a time, etc.). Describe how the learning opportunity
is to be provided (e.g. Direct Instruction or Environmental Engineering;
duration and manner of interaction before pausing, alternating treatment
reinforcement first then no reinforcement phase etc).
Scanning. Describe any assistance provided as needed to insure that
the learner is aware of what is available.
Instructional Cues. Describe what the teacher does to elicit a
response from the learner.
Targeted Behavior. Describe how the learner is to respond. This may
include any mechanical adaptation
Time/Latency. Indicate the amount of time to be allowed the learner to
respond.
Level of Assistance. Describe any physical assistance,
model/demonstration, or other assistance that is being provided to the
learner to make his response.
Protest/Reject. Describe the behavior or absence of behavior, used by
the learner to reject choices or further engagement with current activity.
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Consequence. Describe the manner in which the partner responds
when the learner makes a correct and, (if possible/appropriate), an
incorrect response.
Rowland and Schweigert 2000
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•ENVIRONMENT
•Setting. Describe the context in which the learning opportunity is being
targeted.
•Partner. List the person(s) with whom the learner will be interacting in
the target activity.
•Position. Describe any unique positioning considerations that will be
made to enable the learner to respond. This may include partner’s
position in relation to the learner.
Rowland and Schweigert©2000
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Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Outreach Programs
1100 West 45th Street
Austin, Texas 78756
512-454-8631
www.tsbvi.edu
Figure 5 TSBVI Outreach Programs logo
Figure 6 OSEP logo
This project is supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Special Education Programs (OSEP). Opinions expressed herein are
those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the
U.S. Department of Education.
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