The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of Blissymbol as an augmentative communication system for the nonverbal severely cerebral palsied.
Three male students selected from a special school for the physically handicapped, were participated as subjects. They ranged in age from 7.9 to 11.6 years, with standard IQ scores ranging from 50 to 66 and have got expressive/receptive gap quotient no greater than 0.5. All of the three subjects were nonambulatory and nonverbal severely cerebral palsied.
Blissymbol instructional program included pairing symbols with pictures and verbal labels, symbol discrimination exercises, explaining meaning and composition of symbols, sequencing of symbols and prompting use of symbols for communication purpose.
Individualizing vocabulary selection was performed through children´s teachers, speech and language therapists and through parents, who suggested the lexicon consisted of words that they wanted or needed to have the child communicate.
The subjects of this study have acquired 37 to 90 Blissymbols during about 5 weeks of training with 40-minute per day.
The effectiveness of Blissymbols was measured by analyzing on pragmatic aspects of the children´s symbol use in every day communicative interactions. Data for analyzing were collected through one hour videotaped recording made of each subject´s communication performance in their classrooms and homes.
The conclusions drawn from this study are as follows.
First, the nonverbal severely cerebral palsied have acquired Blissymbols effectively. This is related to the pictorial, semantic and logic nature and generative quality of Blissymbols.
Second, the nonverbal severely cerebral palsied effectively made use of Blissymbols for conversation in every day communication instruction.
Third, the use of Blissymbols increased variety of communicative functions with nonverbal cerebral palsied. With Blissymbols the children were able to express the function of description and statements unabled before, and had decreased in uncodable responses and no responses.
Fourth, the variety of communicative functions through the use of Blissymbols was differences between their school and home. The children expressed more various communicative function in their home than in school. And the children revealed more initiative communicator role in their home than in school. This means Blissymbols are more effective in the natural and unrestricted setting.
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