Developing Communication in the Severely Subnormal Child
A Systematic Curriculum for the Subnormal Child
(Summary)
The system is applicable to any mentally handicapped individual, including 'autistic' people. It is especially designed for
severely mentally handicapped individuals who do not talk, and communicate verbally at a very low level, since the communication
channel used in our system is the visual motor manual one.
The symbolism used in the system must be totally consistent, to make learning easier for the child
This is a very brief description of the system, which was being
developed in the 1980's in special residential schools in the
U.K. It was found to be very useful for children who did not
speak, either as a consequence of a pure language disorder, or as
a feature associated with developmental, delay, autism, and other
conditions. Some of the children it proved to be of benefit for
were children with developmental delay and severe deafness. The
system is a mixture of prescription and description , the
development referred to in the title is one which can occur given
the interventions described. The system consists of a series of
steps or stages, which are more and more sophisticated ways of
communication. Some children may be functioning at the bottom of
the sequence, some in the middle, and some at the top. If we
assess a child as being at one stage we would try to train him to
progress onto higher stages. A child may progress to some
particular stage but not be able to go further.
The child's communicative abilities must be developed properly in
one stage before we try to move him on to the next stage. So the
adult must be alert to the child communicative efforts in that
style and be prepared to respond to them, by giving the child
what he's 'asking' for, if possible, especially if the child is
only just developing expressive communicative skills in this
stage. In the U.K. there is some tendency for staff to be
unconcerned to respond the child's early efforts in t.r.a. This
is bad practice; one must respond to the child's method of
communication, even if it involves being pulled about, and even
if it disturbs what the adult was doing. The duty of the staff is
to teach the child to communicate as efficiently as possible.
Often such staff members are happy to use speech with the child,
only thinking of orders and commands, and only thinking of
getting the child to do what they want. This is authoritarian, and only develops the
child's receptive communicative skills and is unfairly one-way.
We should give the child the means to say what he wants, he may not be able to speak and must be
given other means to express himself.
At each stage the adult and the child should be communicating to
each other in a similar fashion. Of course speech can always be
used in addition, but if, for example, at t.r.a. - p.c.s. the child
is communicating expressively in pictures, so must the adult; if
a child takes the adult to the toilet photo to show he needs
this, the adult will show the child the photo of the swimming
pool to show that he is going to be taken there.
To get the child to move from one stage to the next there are two
factors.
One is the natural process where a more sophisticated
method would prove less wasteful of effort,
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should the desire not
be gratified by the adult in charge.
Next would be the action of
the adult in refusing to respond to the child's request in one
communication type or level and insisting that he use a more
sophisticated type. For example, in t.r.a., the child might take
the adult to the exit door from a room before he pulls him
through it and then to the toilet. In getting the child to go on
to photo use the adult will stop at the destination photo board
and ask the child to point to what it is he wants. Hopefully he
will point to the toilet photo himself, if not he may be helped
to do so.
Of course we should make it easy for the child to progress from
one stage to the other. To do this we can follow various principles.
First, the steps between one stage and the next, the change from
a situation the child has learnt to cope with, has learnt to behave
appropriately in, to a new one he has to learn to deal with, should
be as small as possible.
Second, the different stages should be clearly related. This happens
naturally at some stages.
For example in n.r.a. (see later), real objects, situations and
actions are involved, while at t.r.a. - p.c.s. and pure p.c.s.,
(see later), photos are taken of the objects, situations and
actions and the link is clear. At s.c.s. we have schematic
symbols for members of general classes and these should be as
closely related to the photos, (and so objects), as possible. We
may pick an important or striking feature from the real object,
and so photo, and use this for the symbol. For example for 'cat'
we can use a little black and white line drawing of a sitting
cat, showing the whiskers. At the sign stage we might take
this one striking feature from the symbol and produce this as a
gesture.
In British Sign Language, (b.s.l.), the sign is produced
by placing the hands, with spread extended fingers, by the mouth
and moving them away to the sides, so representing the
whiskers.
A separate factor may modify the selection process for symbols
and signs. This is a possible need to communicate with other
groups, perhaps sign users, with a fully developed natural
language. So do we choose signs which are known to these other
groups or do we stick to above principles?
It might be mentioned that an individual functioning at a
'higher' level in terms of communication, may, in certain
circumstances, 'drop down' to a 'lower' level or style of
communication. This may happen in emotional circumstances, or if
a person is attempting to communicate with someone who has a
'lower' level or type of communication, or if two people don't
share a common 'higher' form of communication. So a normal adult
can communicate with an s.l.d. child via pictures, and the
foreigner in a country whose language he doesn't understand or
speak can also use pictures to indicate what it is he is talking
about.
The system should be employed in all situations, where possible.
So it should be used in the special school, or hospital, and in
the child's home. When using public community facilities, e.g.
out shopping, using public transport, and so on the relevant
materials should be used, according to the level of the child,
e.g. p.c.s., or s.c.s., or sign.
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Communication problems
At any time, at any stage, it might of course turn out that the
communication style or level chosen by the adult to communicate
to the child is too high for the child and the adult will
then have to drop down to a lower level. For example, in giving
the Denver Test the psychologist may have demonstrated
kicking a ball,and the child's task is to imitate this action
of the adult. If this fails the psychologist might have to drop
down to t.r.a. type 2, and e.g. place the ball by the child's foot. If
this fails, he might try physically prompting the movement
of the child's leg and foot, (t.r.a. type 1)
Let us also consider the case when Pe4 communicates something to
Pe2, but that Pe2 does not understand what the other is saying,
or 'saying'. He might understand that Pe4 is saying or 'saying'
something, i.e. is communicating, but does not
understand what it is.
So a foreigner or alien might be
trying to communicate with
us but we do not understand his language.
The task is not to imitate or copy his speech, or other form of
communication, and the person communicated to knows this well enough.
But he might merely copy what the other is saying or saying, to show
he understands that a communication is being attempted.
He should make an accurate copy or imitation of the other's communication,
and not merely reply with nonsense, e.g. "Dirka dirka dirka!", because
he wishes to show he is able to respond in the most elementary
way, and make a proper copy, that he perceives the message accurately.
This is perhaps the preliminary to processing and translating the message,
if he cannot
perceive it accurately he cannot go on to the next step and
translate it.
He might additionally signal that he does not really think his task
is to copy or imitate by deliberately frowning, to indicate
that he is not entirely happy with his performance.
The child should be equipped to overcome obstacles and solve problems
of a wide variety of types.
One type of problem is one where his communicative interaction with another
person fails to result in
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first, understanding, either by the other person, or by himself
and
second, appropriate action, e.g. communicative response or action on
the physical or social environment, either by the other person or by himself.
He should be aware of any failure, be able to localise the problem in the
commmunicative interaction, and be able to take the appropriate action.
He might want to signal that he has encountered a communication problem,
to the other person, e.g. that he has not understood the others message,
(e.g. delivered in pictorial form).
As usual, as with any problem, this is appropriately signalled, in the visual-motor
mode, by a frown
This is perhaps the simplest response and might prompt the other person to try to
solve the problem, e.g. drop down to a 'lower' type of communication. For example,
in the Denver 'kick a ball' item the psychologist might start by
demonstrating the action.
Should the child not understand from this what he is expected to do, then
the psychologist might drop down to
t.r.a. type 3, i.e. presenting the relevant object to a sensory organ of the
child, in this case the eyes
If this does not bring the desired result, should the child not understand
this the psychologist might drop down to
t.r.a. type 2, i.e. presenting the relevant object to a motor organ of the
child, in this case the foot
If this does not bring the desired result, should the child not understand
this the psychologist might drop down to
t.r.a. type 1, i.e. physical prompt of the relevant motor organ, here the leg and foot
At a higher level the child may take more positive or independent action
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Organisation of the field of the curriculum
A collection of objects, situations, events, processes etc can be grouped in a number of different ways. And any set of classes can be
organised in a variety of ways.
A variety of models will be found useful for organising the set of teaching targets or goals
Model 1
We can begin with an analysis of the tasks for the child in terms of the Ogden triangle
(R = reality, P = person, or organism, S = statement)
R
In R we have descriptions of reality, at varying levels. Since they are descriptions they are necessarily S's, but what we are
pointing to is the reality itself. This might consist of entities of varying levels of complexity, e.g.
objects
situations
events
processes
We call this n.r.a.
The store places for real objects, (i.e. objects which might be symbolic, as in t.r.a., but which are not primarily symbolic,
such as photos etc.)
Where should these be and what should they be like?
S
In S we have statements about R. The statements
might be statements of external fact, e.g.
the cat is on the mat
or
statements of need or desire, e.g.
I want a sweet
Vocabulary vs Syntax
The first talks about the breadth of the child's communicative abilities, for example, in s.c.s.
how many symbols does the child understand, know the meaning of?
The second talks about the complexity of the construction of a statement, for example, again in s.c.s.
how complex a statement can the child understand?
Another attribute might be the abstractness of the symbols in the statement
and so of the statement.
All these are different dimensions and need separate attention from the teacher
Channels
The statements might be rendered in different channels, e.g. auditory-vocal, verbal, or visual motor, manual. Our system focusses on the latter.
Levels and Types of Communication
Within this channel there are varying levels and types, i.e.
t.r.a.
This is the use of natural gestures, real movements and real objects, as a deliberate communication
There are various types
physical prompts on motor organs of the other person, (an 'imperative' type)
use of objects presented to motor organs of the other person
use of objects presented to sensory organs of the other person, (an 'indicative' type)
(in probable order of increasing sophistication)
p.c.s.
This is the use of photos to represent objects, situations, events and processes
s.c.s.
This is the use of schematic symbols, e.g. simple black and white line drawings, to represent classes of objects, situations, events
and processes
sign
This is the use of conventionalised manual and facial movements, in a communication system. There are various types.
Naturally evolved vs artificial, (not a hard and fast distinction)
b.s.l.
a.s.l.
swedish sign language
thai sign language
etc etc
These vary in more than one dimension, e.g. in complexity and level of abstraction.
In addition there are sub-stages, and types to be considered, and intermediate, or hybrid types. So we might have
t.r.a.
t.r.a. - p.c.s.
In this type we have
destination, place photo boards by doors
activity photo boards on walls of rooms etc.
contents photo boards on doors of containers, e.g. cupboards, fridges etc.
demo-imitation I
demo-imitation II
p.c.s.
s.c.s.
sign
etc.
As we said the stages represent changes in more than one dimension, e.g. in complexity, level of abstraction, etc etc. So the relationships
between the stages are poorly represented by a linear sequence as above. To get a better idea of the real distance between stages we need a
diagram showing more than one dimension. This can also indicate different possible paths of development of the skills represented by the stages.
This will become more and more necessary as we consider more and more stages or types of skill.
Such a diagram might be
n.r.a.
|
(+intentional
communication)
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v
------------------------------------------
t.r.a. --------------------------- |
---------- | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |
| | (3 D symbols) (3 D symbols)
(symbolisation | |
of objects) | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| (2 D symbols v v
| in real space)
| | puppets puppets
v | realistic generalised
| | |
mime | | |
| | |
| v | |
| (third (third
| t.r.a.- p.c.s. dimension dimension
| symbolised) symbolised)
(upper body part | | |
rep lower one) | | |
| | v v
| |
| | movies movies
| | realistic cartoon
| | | |
| (2-D symbols | |
v in symbolic (temporal (temporal
space relations relations
sign | symbolised) symbolised)
| | |
| | |
| v v
|
------------> p.c.s. -------> s.c.s.
We have refined the scheme to deal with one hybrid or compound, that of t.r.a. - p.c.s. Note however that other hybrids are possible, e,g,
t.r.a. - s.c.s. It might be however that some of these stages might be omitted in teaching
Of course some connections are not indicated by arrows. For example we might develop s.c.s., and then go on to sign, since sign represents
a likely advance over s.c.s. in that in that form of communication
the symbols must be constructed
and
recall is involved, rather than recognition
However one can argue that sign, in containing an element of a), or b), as far as the representation of time is concerned,
is easier than s.c.s., since in this latter time must be represented as in c). One might think it more likely that the
sequence should be
cartoon movies ------>sign
------>s.c.s
The decision as to which of two stages is easier, will of course be facilitated by splitting the stages into sub-types,
e.g. t.r.a. into t.r.a. type 1, t.r.a. type 2 and t.r.a. type3.
And, or, considering the above examples, of s.c.s. and sign, we might take the topic into consideration, and proceed from
sign to s.c.s., if we are dealing with time, but from s.c.s. to sign, if we are dealing with any other material. It might be,
again, that the issue will be affected by whether we are dealing with receptive processes, or expressive processes
We see that some stages, probably all stages, can be reached, i.e. developed, from more than one previous stage. An example is
cartoon movies, which could be reached from generalised puppets, or from realistic movies.
Do we choose one of these avenues, and if so which one, or do we use both?
If we choose one, does the one we choose vary with the individual child?
a) When a dimension is itself and does not represent anything else this is the easiest thing.
b) When a dimension represents itself, but to some scale, e.g. where 1" = 100', this is more difficult
c) When a dimension represents a different dimension, this is much more difficult, of course
As regards space, in t.r.a. - p.c.s. the situation is closer to a), while in p.c.s., and s.c.s., the situation is that of b)
As regards time, in p.c.s. and s.c.s., the situation is that of c), e.g. if picture of event e2, or situation s2, is to the right
of the picture of event e1, or situation s1, then event e2, or situation s2, comes after event e1, or situation s1.
Naturally if we are representing objects, places, and situations, there is no need for a movie, our static pictures, in t.r.a. - p.c.s.,
p.c.s., and s.c.s., will be quite sufficient
Only when events, e.g. movements, are involved is there a big advantage for a movie, e.g. a short movie clip
If we are considering receptive processes, the above ranking of order of difficulty is certainly correct.
What about expressive processes? If course our children are not movie makers, but neither are they photographers or artists. To make things
as easy as possible for our children we have tried, where possible, to limit their expressive response to a point
So they are quite able to point to a symbol, or a photo, and probably to select a short movie clip, as representing something which happened,
or is happening, or will happen, or that they would like to happen.
Of course another factor is the ease with which the staff can set up a system of communication and teaching for the child.
To go into movie clips is perhaps beyond the resources of many people dealing with s.l.d. and autistic children so we we will probably
be skipping this stage
For more on this topic see 'A unifying scheme', on this web-site.
Another dimension or variable to consider in S is
the stage of the communicative process,
whether
receptive processes, (decoding)
or
associative processes
or
expressive processes, (encoding)
following the ITPA model again, (as with the distinction between channels, visual - motor, auditory - vocal etc)
(See model 4 below)
General
All of these models involve variables
In the present case, (model 1),
P is a variable, and can have the values Pe1, Pe2, etc. or Peter, John, Amanda etc
R is another variable and can have the value entity, its only primary value?
The value, entity, is itself a variable, which can have these values:-
object, situation, event, and process
The value object, is itself a variable, which can have the values, book, table, etc etc
The value 'situation' is of course a complex made up of the simpler concept of object,
different objects being in
various spatial relationships, above, in etc.
Dimensions might be regarded as attributes which vary in a simple uniform manner, e.g.
physical attributes of an object such as
length, weight, colour etc.
The sequence t.r.a. type 1, t.r.a. type 2, t.r.a. type 3, t.r.a.- p.c.s., p.c.s., s.c.s., and sign
cannot be regarded as a single simple dimension.
The change from t.r.a. to demo-imitation, from demo-imitation to p.c.s., from p.c.s. to s.c.s. and from s.c.s.
to sign, are not of the same type.
Even the change from t.r.a. type 1 to t.r.a. type 2, and from t.r.a. type 2 to t.r.a. type 3 are not of the same nature.
In demo
a real object might represent a different object,
a person may represent another person
one part of a person may represent the corresponding part of another person
one part of a person may represent another part of the same person
one place may represent another place
in p.c.s. a picture represents an object, person, place, situation, event, process etc.
in s.c.s. the same happens but the symbol is more schematic and the referent belongs to a wider class,
the idea or concept is more abstract
in sign the person has to construct the symbols, (he usually doesn't in p.c.s. and s.c.s.)
The small steps necessary in teaching the mentally handicapped child might involve a small jump in a single and
simple dimension but need not be. Consider the following diagram:-
D1, D2, and D3 are different dimensions.
The line, a--b--g--g' etc represents increase in difficulty of teaching targets, (because of
increases in abstraction, complexity, etc of the skill being taught).
The jump from a to b, may be no greater than that from g to g'
In the present model, model 1, consider the:-
Relation between S and R
The relation between S and R is measured as True, or False. Clearly, a statement which reflects a complex fact, in R, e.g.
a situation,
the cat sat on the mat,
will be of a similar level of complexity, if the translation is a literal, and transparent one.
and
Relations between P and R
Here are classed things like
the person seeing such and such an object or event etc
and
Relations between P and S and R
Here are classed things like
A person making a statement about something,
or
A person having an attitude to something.
Of course in the above triangle diagram S and P are also part of
reality, a larger reality R', which includes R, and S, and P.
The original triangle therefore must be seen as coming under R', in
a new triangle diagram, whose apexes are P', S', and R'.
(Diagram)
This process can of course be continued, to R'', S'', and P'', and so on,
ad infinitum.
A complex example of 'relations between P, S and R' involves another very useful
model for understanding and analysing the child's behaviour:-
Model 2
Plans
Choose ultimate goal
This might take into account the
present situation
Formation or modification
Break down the route to the ultimate goal, from the present situation, into a series of sub-goals, and sub-plans to achieve these
what are the materials (means objects) and method
gathering the means objects from their store places
bringing them to their appropriate work areas, e.g. to other objects
initating various events and processes etc
expectation of success
Implementation
Prescription, decoding, and following, as a sequence of orders, S --->responses
Evaluation of plan in terms of success or failure, and the necessary further actions
If there is success in attaining the sub-goal go on to the next, unless the sub-goal achieved is the ultimate goal.
Record the plan which was successful, and the fact it was successful.
If there is failure in attaining the sub-goal, count the number of failures, (e.g. n)
If n < r, try the method or plan again
If n > r but < s check if the means objects are being used properly and if necessary modify their use
If n > s but < t check that the means objects are functioning properly
If n > t but < u change the means objects
If n > u but < v consider changing the sub-goal
If n > v but < w consider changing the ultimate goal
Putting the means objects away or throwing them away
Will the objects ever be used again?
If not, throw them away
If yes, will they be used for their original purpose?
The answer to this question can tell us which is the appropriate store place for the items
The appropriate store is one which satisfies these criteria:-
Closeness to the place where they will be used, their work area or areas
Suitability for keeping the items in good condition, for future use
Treat the items before they are stored, to keep them in good condition, and ready for their next use, if necessary
Another useful model for understanding and analysing the child's behaviour is:-
Model 3
Task
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V
St ---------------> O ----------------> Response
The stimulus, (St )
This might consist of
an attribute of an object
an object or objects
a situation or situations
an event, or events, actions
a process or processes
It might involve, as well as, or instead of, objects as mere objects,
symbols, objects which are at least partly, to be regarded as symbols
The task
The task, for Pe2, as intended by Pe1, might be to
Imitate or copy what Pe 1 does or did
The task might be more complex, e.g. to carry on a normal sequence, to do the usual next things
The Response
This can be correct or incorrect
If the task is to imitate or copy, then a correct response will be as complex as the stimulus, and more, just the same.
If the Stimulus was Pe1 kicking a ball, and the task as given by Pe 1 to Pe2 is to imitate, and Pe 2�s response is to
kick the ball, he is successful, his response is correct. He has understood the task, what Pe1 wanted him to do, and he has done it properly
Otherwise he fails, and his response is incorrect.
A final model we might consider as an aid to understanding behaviour is:-
Model 4
This is a model used in the ITPA test
reception or decoding
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V
association
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V
expression or encoding
Model 3 and model 4 are quite similar in nature and might of course be combined.
Obviously the associations could be represented visually-spatially. This could help the child
to find his way, from the stimulus, and the task, to the 'correct' response, e.g.
stimulus:- (word) 'frog'
task:- Give a supraordinate class
responses:- 'amphibian', 'vertebrate', 'animal' (all correct)
responses:- 'dog', 'toad', etc. (all incorrect)
The 'associations' in model 4 are meaningful links, while the 'task' of model 3 asks us to select from
these associations, so as to produce a member of a much more restricted class, possibly even unique,
one which can be termed 'correct' or 'incorrect'
The associations, in model 4, are relationships between symbols as symbols, or the referents of the symbols
The task, in model 3, is the relation which must hold between S and R, for the R to be considered correct.
The stimulus, in model 3, might be an actual object, situation, event, or process, or a symbol, or
set of symbols, e.g. a statement, e.g. we might present a person with a real frog, or a picture of
a frog, or the word 'frog' etc.
We might note that, in learning a language, it is usual for the learner to be better in understanding,
than in expressing himself. The former ability always leads the latter.
So in our, primarily visual - motor, scheme, at the highest level, we might teach the child to, for example
first understand a sign, before being able to make it himself and use it properly, and similarly for the lower
levels, e.g. p.c.s., s.c.s. etc.
Let us give a fuller description of the system and of these aspects of the system
Organisation of the field of the curriculum
A collection of objects, situations, events, processes etc can be grouped in a number of different ways. And any set of classes can be
organised in a variety of ways.
For example we might have
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squares circles (shape)
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------------ ----------------
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red squares blue squares red circles blue circles (colour)
or
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red things blue things (colour)
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------------ ----------------
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red squares red circles blue squares blue circles (shape)
The way things are grouped depends on the need, the goal. For example if we need a stop to keep a door ajar
we can use a wedge shape. This is the important attribute for this purpose and others may not be important,
or as important. They might be completely irrelevant, and in that case the associated grouping will not be made.
If a second attribute has some importance, but a secondary importance to the first, here shape, then we might make
the associated grouping after the first one. A person needs a wedge and he makes shape the basis of his first
grouping of objects he is considering for the job. He might subsequently consider colour, as he may want the wedge
to fit into the colour scheme of his flat!
What are our needs, as the teacher of the subnormal pupil, for our teaching scheme? Here relevant criteria might be
a. how easy is it teach, is our method of organising the field, the set of objectives, better as far as teaching is
concerned than another method?
b. how easy is it for the teacher to understand the field, the set of teaching objectives, the various skills, which
he is trying to develop in the child?
c. how easy is it for the child to understand what he has to do?
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As I have often said before, if the teacher does not have a clear idea of what he is trying to teach he has no business
in the classroom
And another thing I have said many times before is that things which we take for granted as simple, at a deeper level
of analysis are not, e.g. the process of walking, the elementary facts of arithmetic as analysed by logicians, where the
fact that 1 + 1 = 2 takes up two or three dense pages of logical symbols, and so on.
Obviously the s.l.d. child does not need to understand these things at a conscious, verbalisable level, if he could he
would not be mentally handicapped! The 'understanding', if this is the right word, only needs to be present at a very
basic behavioural level.
Like a basically simple-minded computer the subnormal pupil might need to be programmed, and the programming might be a very
arduous and demanding exercise, more demanding than the process of teaching calculus to an intelligent pupil.
The order of application of the different models can vary, if we choose. Instead of starting with the Ogden triangle as model
number 1, and subdividing this in terms of the plan model, as model 2, we might start with the plan model as number 1 ,
and then subdivide this in terms of the Odgen triangle concept as model number 2.
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Model 1
Entities in R
attributes of objects
For example, colour, form or shape, weight, size, composition, spatial location.
These have various values, e.g. red, 12 lbs, 3' x 4' x 5', in John's lounge
The values of these determines the possible functions of the object
objects
These are complexes of attributes
situations
These are complexes of objects in various spatial, (metric and topological) relationships.
For example, cat on the mat
events
These are changes in attributes of objects, or relationships between objects, in time.
The change might be in a single attribute of an object, e.g.
the metal rod got longer
or
in a relation between objects.
For example
the distance between objects obj1 and obj2 decreases. This might be due to a movement of obj1,
or obj2, or of both.
processes
These are complexes of events. The events might be simultaneous or in temporal sequence. The relations between the events might be
a purely temporal one, or a causal one.
For example
the metal rod got longer because it was heated in the fire
Levels and Types of Communication
n.r.a. (natural real action)
Definitions and descriptions
(n.r.a. is somewhat oddly placed in this section, because the area covered is
not communicative, at least in a deliberate and conscious manner. But since it is
the basis for the first real conscious and deliberate type of communication, (t.r.a.)
we will consider it here).
This term covers all those behaviours of an individual which do not involve
deliberate and conscious communication to another person or other sentient being.
It would include lower level communicative behaviours such as might occur in infra-human
organisms.
This term includes the ability of the child to recognise which
objects are nice for him, or bad for him, and to learn where
these things are. The normal toddler learns that there are sweets
in the cupboard in the kitchen, knows where the kitchen is, knows
how to get there, and so on. This ability is nearly always
present in our children. We need to let them properly explore,
and become familiar with, their environment. A child must learn
where the nice things are, if he doesn't know where the nice
things are he can't show you what he wants by taking you to
them.
Rather than simply let the child discover the features of his
physical environment by himself we might of course go about this
in a more controlled and systematic fashion. So we might start
off by letting the child learn to master small and simple
sections of the environment, and move on from there. We might
also begin by accepting relatively incompetent and inefficient
forms of procedure such as primitive trial and error, and then
try to make this more efficient and so on.
As said above the child knows where the good things are, and gets
them*. This place will often be the store place for the object,
e.g. the orange juice in the fridge, the packet of crisps in the
kitchen cupboard etc. The objects might be nice because they are
goal objects, he simply gets them from where they are e.g. a
store place and uses them in a consummatory act to satisfy a
need. But it is possible that they are means objects and he might
put them together in some action, which will lead to the
consummatory act. In this way he is following a plan. So he might
try and fail to get a packet of crisps on a high shelf, and then
get a chair, put it under the shelf, climb up on it, and get the
crisps. This is a trial and error type of plan, and solution. He
might not even need to first try to get the crisps without a
chair, he knows the solution to the problem from past
experience.
The emotional accompaniments to the behaviours have been
mentioned above.
*With wider experience of the world the child eventually might
learn that there are store places which are more basic and more
remote from him than those in the home, the kitchen, for foods,
and so on. These are the shops, supermarkets, etc. to which his
mother might take him when she goes shopping, often by car.
If we apply the dimensions of sensory versus motor, type of
sense and type of motor action, and whether the action is
positive or negative, we get this kind of organisation:-
Positives
Sensory
Visual: Wanting to see, to use the eyes, 'shading' action of the
hand held above the eyes, opening the eyes, wide
Auditory: Wanting to hear, to use the ears, cupping action of the
hand by the ear
Olfactory: Wanting to smell, wafting action of the hand, producing
a current of air by the nose, 'opening' the nose (flaring the
nostrils)
Motor
Gross motor
Fine-motor - manual
Wanting object to be used in ones personal bodily work space.
Bring another persons hand, perhaps with an object, to the space.
Wanting to have, and to use, object offered by another person to
your hand = put out palm out hand ("Give me so and so")
Facial Expression
Here, in n.r.a., we are of course talking about emotional expressions,
such as emotional smiles and emotional frowns.
These are of course not deliberately, consciously communicative, on the
part of the smiler. Another example might be the expression
of happy surprise. This might be understood in terms of Mowrer's Two Factor
Learning Theory. (Also see the expression of unhappy surprise below).
Vocal
Opening the mouth
Negatives
Sensory
Visual- not wanting to see something. Look away, so eyes cannot
see the particular thing. As a stronger response, where one makes
the eyes not able to see anything, one might shut the eyes, or
put one's hands over the eyes. One might also simply remove the
source of illumination, e.g. turn out the light.
One might also
of course remove a visual aid, e.g. spectacles, put them away, or
even throw them away, or even break them, as more permanent
measures.
Auditory- not wanting to hear something. One might make a
competing sound to drown out a sound. Or try to make the ears
unable to hear anything , e.g. putting the fingers in the ears.
Or one might remove an auditory aid, e.g. hearing aid, or put it
away, or even throw it away, or even damage it, as more permanent
measures.
Olfactory -not wanting to smell something. One might 'shut' the
nose, i.e. wrinkle one's nose, or hold one's nose. The situation
in which one might to do this is when there is a bad smell, and
so the action could be used as a symbol for this circumstance.
Motor
Fine Motor Manual
Not wanting to use the hands for a particular purpose, e.g. to
hold an object = open the hand with the palm facing downwards.
This assumes the object was in the hand, to start with. Also see
removing the hands from an object, so it cannot be manipulated.
At the very early stage of a plan, of the selection of objects to
be used, one may not select a particular object, i.e. not grasp
it and bring it into the working area in front of you.
Not wanting to use a particular object*, perhaps after using it
for a while. Remove the object from the work area, put the object
away in its store place, or even throw it away. Cases include the
girl who put psychologist's test blocks away in their box
and the box into his briefcase. See also not wanting another
person to use his hand and a held object in one's personal 'work'
area, e.g. adult offering child something e.g. to eat, or
offering to put sauce onto her dinner plate. In these cases child
pushes the hand and what it holds away from her plate.
Not wanting to use the hands for any purpose, e.g. to hold
anything = put (or 'lock') the hands away, i.e. fold the arms.
(One is not able to use the hands for any purpose in this
position).
Not wanting to use the fingers for any purpose. One might put or
'lock' the fingers away. See case 'Beam', described in "Looking at hands, 3".
Vocal
Not wanting to speak = closing the mouth with a finger or hand
held over the lips or mouth, so one cannot cannot use the lips
to talk
Another way of achieving this would be not to use, or be able to
use, the tongue. This could be done by removing it from its area
of use, (here the mouth), from the things it works with, (here
the teeth and the lips), i.e. by sticking it out of the mouth and
putting it between the lips. This behaviour is often seen in
children, when they are concentrating on some task. It has this significance:
"I don't intend to use my tongue to talk to anyone,
I've put it away, (so I can't talk)", because I am busy doing something and do not
wish to be disturbed, and don't want to talk to anyone".
Note that in this case the tongue is protruded, but perhaps only slightly, and often is at the
extreme corner or side of the mouth.
We maintain that this is basis for the 'rude' tongue protruding gesture. In the rude version however
the gesture is modified somewhat, in the 'rude' variant the tongue might be stuck out much further,
(the movement is exaggerated), and the tongue is kept in a central position between the lips.
Both these features imply a more conscious gesture directed towards a specific person. The gesturer is
looking at this specific person and so the central position of the tongue means that the tongue is directed
straight at him. So the original t.r.a. meaning of:- "I am busy doing something, I do not want to talk to anybody,
everybody leave me alone", is modified to:- "You leave me alone, go away, I do not want to talk to you,
or be with you at all"
Gross motor
Not wanting to use one's
feet to walk. Sit down or lie down, e.g. on
the ground. In this position one cannot use the feet to walk.
(Such behaviour is common in children and was seen by the author
in an s.l.d. teenager, who used this tactic to resist being moved
from things he wanted to stare at outside, e.g. diggers, and to
avoid being made to go to class)
Not wanting to use one's legs, e.g. to put one's feet into
puddles, after child has been told not to by an accompanying
adult, see case discussed below.
Note that in pathological cases the person might make an
especially strong statement, prompted by an especially strong
desire. In the determination not to use something for a
particular purpose one level of strength is to not use it for
anything . The object is put
into a position where it is
unable, for the time being, to be
used for anything, e.g. folding
the arms, sitting on the ground, putting one's spectacles away in
their case etc. Even stronger is where the person might put the
object into a state where it is permanently unable to be used for
anything, i.e. one might damage or destroy the object. So a child
under pressure from parents who have highly unrealistic academic
aspirations for him, may break his spectacles, something
necessary for class work. Even more pathological is where the
individual damages or destroys his own person, e.g. blinds
herself so she cannot see, shoots himself in the foot so he
cannot march etc. See the case of E.H., a late teenage s.l.d.
girl, who damaged the sight in one eye by persistently striking it with her
hand. One might interpret this as the desire not to see the primal scene.
More peculiarly, in the 'paleologic' of the unconscious, not to
see, (or more accurately it is the stronger not to be able to see now), is
also not to have seen or not to have been able to see the
primal scene. By another piece of the same type of 'logic',
not to see something is for the thing not to be, and not to have been. In this way E.
causes her father not to have had sexual intercourse with her mother.
The secondary gain here is highly supportive of this Freudian view, threats to hit
herself in the eye result in her getting something she wants, to
sleep in the same bed as her parents, or of one of them anyway,
thus preventing sexual relations between the parents. In the myth
of Oedipus he also blinds himself, but here only after he has
achieved his incestuous goal, unwittingly. We could speculate
that in this case the action is taken to attack the eyes, because
they led to the dreadful act, by giving O. the sexually tempting
sight of his mother, but failing to identify this person as his mother, or his father
as his father.
The functions of objects determines what situations are possible, what combinations of objects
are possible and in turn what events are possible
We can have active functions and passive functions
For example the functions of the hand might be
to grasp
to smack
And the functions of a book might be
to be read
to be held
etc
We can predict what situation and action might occur if a hand and a book are combined, brought together in n.r.a.,
(or later, in t.r.a., what action is suggested if someone puts a book into someone else's hand.
This can be analysed in terms of the possible, potential, functions of objects. So the active functions of the hand, and the passive
functions of the book might only correspond in a few matches. One of these might be holding, and being held, so this is
a possible situation and a possible event or process with these two objects.
The child easily learns where are the good, and bad things in his environment. (This will be the basis for the use of place, as an organising factor
in the arrangement of symbols in the store places, in t.r.a. - p.c.s., p.c.s., and s.c.s. etc, later)
The explanation of the ease of this, even for the very severely mentally handicapped person is quite simple. The number of cues to the location
of an object which is always kept in the same place, in the same spatial context or position are extremely large. So, for example, the child learns
that sweets are in that cupboard, in that corner of the psychologist's room, which is just opposite the gym, etc etc.
If the object is pulled out of its context, and its location or whereabouts is made variable, and is signalled only by one or two cues, e.g. a blue
circle, the task becomes much more difficult for the organism, (mentally handicapped child, laboratory rat etc.)
(Cf the dissecting free of the response of pulling down knickers, in the case of Debbie S. from its original setting in a toilet, and producing it
in a classroom)
t.r.a. (token real action)
Definitions and descriptions
Any of the behaviours discussed above in n.r.a. might be classifiable in this section, provided only that the
individual is at least partly engaging in the behaviour as a deliberate and conscious form of communication to another
person or sentient being. So the girl putting, or attempting to put, the psychologist's blocks away in their box, and this
box in his case, during a D.D.S.T testing session, described above, was almost certainly engaging in t.r.a., rather than mere n.r.a.
For the behaviour to be t.r.a. it will have to occur in the presence of another person, and there might be other clues, e.g.
the child might look at the other person as he is engaging in the behaviour, presumably to see if he is looking, and to see what
his reaction is, or what it might be.
There are various types:-
Type 1: physical prompts on motor organs of the other person, (an 'imperative' type)
Reduced force
When the child is physically acting on an adult, e.g. pushing and
pulling him, we will generally see less force used than would be
the case if the person were an insentient, inanimate object, (as opposed
to the case where the child is not physically acting on the adult when we will often
get an exaggeration of the action., e.g. the (motor) response
is increased in extent, rate etc.)
One person, e.g. a child, acts on the motor organs of another, e.g. an
adult, e.g. by taking his hand, by pulling him and moving him bodily to
the place the child wishes the other person to be, with himself, or 'throwing'
his hand towards an object out of reach, which he wishes the adult to reach for,
grasp, and perhaps give to the child etc.
(In a sense the child is still acting
on the sensory organs indirectly because of the movement; so
kinaesthetic and proprioceptive senses are involved).
Type 2: use of objects presented to motor organs of the other person
This involves bringing an object into the appropriate
relationship, e.g. spatial proximity, with a motor organ of the
person. For example if you want a child to use some object,
e.g. his knife, at the dinner table, you put the knife into his hand.
Type 3: use of objects, situations, events or processes presented to sensory
organs of the other person, (an 'indicative' type)
This involves presenting an object, situation,
event, or process, e.g. a group of events, to one of
the sensory organs of a person. For example if you want a child
to see, to look at, an object you place that object at a comfortable
viewing distance in front of his eyes.
If we are merely presenting an object to someone, the equivalent
verbal message might be given as
"Here is a banana"
To assert the existence of the object, (or situation, event, process
etc), we present the whole entity to the perceiver, with no extra
intervening device which could limit the amount and type of information
or stimulation reaching the perceiver.
Attributes of an object
Or we might be showing some attribute of the object, e.g. its color.
The fact that we are presenting the object to the other person's
eyes, rather than to, e.g. his ears, in itself implies that we
are interested in the visual qualities, rather than any others,
of the object. But how would we focus specifically on one attribute of
the object, e.g. its color? We need to isolate the quality, make the
person focus his attention on this one attribute, and perceive its
value. How? We might think of an operation, using extra objects, which
might be used to measure the attribute. We might take a little
hole cut in a piece of card and put this over the object. Then we might
use a card of diffent colours organised systematically, in a line,
e.g. r, o, y, g, b, i, v and match our isolated quality with a colour
on the test card. To make things easier the object should have a
uniform colour.
Verbally this message would simply be expressible as
"Yellow"
To get something which could be expressed as
"The banana is yellow", (or better, as in some simpler
languages,
"banana -- yellow")
we will
first have to present the object
second present the object cut down to a mere patch of
colour.
Of course a quality in one sensory modality can have this isolating
treatment applied to another. For example we might think about a
quality of an object which is not visual, e.g. weight. If we place the
object on one pan of a balance, and a weight of known value on the
other, and the pans balance, then we know that the weight of the
object is equal to that of the standard weight.
To assert the existence of a value of an attribute of the entity we
present the entity via a limiting, selecting, reducing device. This
could also be a measuring device, which will assign a value to the
attribute. For example:- "this apple weighs 3 ozs". In this case we
would
(a) present the apple
and then
(b) get or select the balance or scales, weights etc
and then
(c) weigh the apple in front of the person.
In (c) we are reducing the amount of information impacting on the
person from the object, selecting from the possible stimuli,
and type of stimuli, arising from it.
This is just like when in presenting a whole object to a person we
select an object from a range of possible objects. Selection of the
object(s) to be involved in an activity is an early stage in the
implementation of a plan.
The type of object used in this stimuli type reduction and selection
and/or measurement can be compared with that used to enhance
the stimuli from an object, e.g. a telescope, or microscope.
We might present a single event, (or very simple process), to someone else.
The motive might be initially indicative, to give information to another person.
But the ultimate motive might be to then ask for permission to do the thing, or
to carry on the process, of which the actually done action or event is an early
stage of.
Take the example of eating something, e.g. a grape, (which we discuss later, in sign),
which we can code in t.r.a. as
^
x B [grape] T (maybe without the 'so and so')
Although initially indicative, = "look, I am going to eat this grape",
the ultimate meaning might be a request for permission to continue the process,
to actually put the grape in the mouth, chew it and swallow it, = "may I have this grape?"
Presentation of a sequence of events
We might be presenting a sequence of events, rather than a
single event, to a person. In fact we might be intending to
demonstrate a relation between these events, e.g. a causal connection,
we squeeze a dog's toy ball and it squeaks. In turn we might be trying
to tell the other person that a certain mechanism exists, in the toy ball,
to produce this effect. The further message is that the object, or the
mechanism in it, is working.
If one knows that the other person is aware of this mechanism, and that
it has in the past worked to produce a squeak, on being squeezed, we can,
on the other hand, demonstrate that the thing is no longer working, is
broken, by trying to operate the thing in front of the person
and failing, so showing that the usual effect now does not occur.
We might be presenting something very complex, a relation between the
object, situation, event or process, and a person, e.g the presenter.
So we might be communicating the presenters attitude to the
object, situation, event, or process. This is most simply done by
showing an awareness of the entity, e.g. by looking at it, in the
visual case we are most interested in here, and by either a
smile, or a frown.
(Although these items in type 3 are indicative in their primary character, a secondary
implication might be of a different type. For example we can show the
child an object, which is of an indicative character, but we might in
fact be asking the child to do something with it, an implied
imperative.)
Exaggeration
If person Pe1 is not 'physically' acting on person Pe2, as in t.r.a. type 3, we will often
get an exaggeration of the action., e.g. Pe1's (motor) response of directing Pe2's
awareness to something is increased in extent, rate etc. This is presumably partly a result
of a desire to get Pe2's attention.
Presentation of a sequence of events
We might be presenting a sequence of events, rather than a
single event, to a person. In fact we might be intending to
demonstrate a relation between these events, e.g. a causal connection,
we squeeze a dog's toy ball and it squeaks. In turn we might be trying
to tell the other person that a certain mechanism exists, in the toy ball,
to produce this effect. The further message is that the object, or the
mechanism in it, is working.
If one knows that the other person is aware of this mechanism, and that
it has in the past worked to produce a squeak, on being squeezed, we can,
on the other hand, demonstrate that the thing is no longer working, is
broken, by trying to operate the thing in front of the person
and failing, so showing that the usual effect now does not occur.
We might be presenting something very complex, a relation between the
object, situation, event or process, and a person, e.g the presenter.
So we might be communicating the presenters attitude to the
object, situation, event, or process. This is most simply done by
showing an awareness of the entity, e.g. by looking at it, in the
visual case we are most interested in here, and by either a
smile, or a frown. Note that there are two behaviours which
are psychologically identical, in that they both
involve bringing together the elements or objects of an activity, at
the beginning of the implementation of a plan to achieve or satisfy
some desire, i.e. the person who will use the object(s) and the
object(s) he will use:-
a. bringing an object to a person to indicate a desired action on
the part of the person, (appropriate for small, light objects)
b. pulling the adult to an object, for the same purpose,
(appropriate for big, heavy, fixed objects and places)
For example an s.l.d. girl who, in her eyes,
had finished her testing session with the psychologist, put his
Denver test items back into his case! In another example a boy
with expressive communication problems was being tested with the
W.I.S.C. III and after completing an item of a manual task, the
Block Design sub-test, he would lean back in his chair and fold
his arms. He was, in a sense, 'putting his hands away', just as
he might show that he had finished playing with some inanimate
object, e.g. a jigsaw puzzle, by putting it away in its proper
cupboard or drawer etc. This was done to signify to the
psychologist that he had completed the task, and had no further
need to use his hands, at least for the next few seconds, until
the next task was given to him. The boy's communication consisted
of
a. his signal that he did not need or wish to use his hands
b. his awareness that he worked on the design and his belief that
it was correct and his knowledge that the psychologist was aware
of the situation
Therefore from a. and b. the communication becomes "I have
completed the task, I think successfully." (Possibly there
is also an implied desire to be told if it is correct and be
given recognition if it is. Also involved here are facial
expressions of a positive kind).
Of course the above leaning back and arm folding, in the
different context of a child not even beginning the task would
mean "I am not using my hands, I don't intend to, I don't
want to do the task".
Other children might turn around in
the chair with their heads and eyes away from the table where the
task materials are placed. This again would mean that the child
doesn't intend to do the task, since he does not intend to use
his eyes for that purpose; this organ, together with the hands,
being essential objects in carrying out a visuo-motor, manual task.
Note also that the behaviour has a kind of backward implication,
rather than a forward one. When a child gives his mother the car
keys, the meaning stretches forwards to the trip in the car, and e.g. the arrival at the
shops etc. On the other hand the putting away behaviour refers to
the previous stage of attainment of the goal, the successful
completion of the task by the child, (in his opinion)."I
have put things away, things used in the activity, because I have finished the activity".
This backwards implication would appear to be a higher form of t.ra. communication than the
forwards type, which seems closer to mere conditioning.
This behaviour involves a negative. As another example of a
negative statement in t.r.a we may cite the case of the boy who
was warned by the care worker in charge of him, during a walk
outside on a wet day, not to step in puddles. The boy is reported to have shown
behaviour in which he stepped very high over any puddles he encountered and looked at the care worker.
The boy clearly was deliberately and consciously
'saying' to the care worker, "You can see I am not stepping in the
puddle!"
Another possible example, to be placed in this category, is the behaviour of completely up-ending a container
to demonstrate that
the container is empty
For example, Amanda is being distracted by the presence of a plastic or paper shopping bag up on a shelf in the classroom,
and might be even trying to see what is in it. Of course, like many of her peers she is highly motivated by food and the
shopping bag will seem a very promising place to look for this.
She is verbally told to leave it alone, but naturally this has little effect in stopping her attempts to investigate.
But when the psychologist gets the bag down, and up-ends it, showing that nothing falls out, and that therefore it was empty,
Amanda gets the message and loses interest.
How simple to solve the problem, and how difficult for the hidebound, verbal language obsessed teacher!
How should we analyse or interpret this?
This is a simple, quite uniform process, of taking hold of a container, perhaps placing it by another container, and gradually
tilting the container, resulting in the contents running out, until the final phase where the situation is that the container is
completely upended. No further contents escape from the container, and it can be seen that the container is empty
In the shopping bag example the bag, finally, becomes completely up-ended, and so then we know there will be nothing in it.
We see nothing under the bag, nothing at all came out of the bag, and so it is clear that the bag had nothing in it.
Now Amanda does not need to realise all of this, just that,
now, the bag has nothing in it
there is nothing interesting on the table, (if that is where the bag was up-ended over)
This is enough to remove Amanda's interest in the bag
We are looking at a process, belonging to a general class, of pouring out something, especially a liquid, from a container,
perhaps into another container.
Note the interest young children have in this sort of thing. They should be, and often are, given this sort of experience
when they are encouraged to play with water and sand, filling and emptying little buckets and other containers.
They also will see, and should be allowed to do themselves, if possible, the same process when e.g. tea is poured out
of a teapot into a teacup, orange juice poured out of a jug into their glass, and so on.
Vocabulary
In t.r.a. the child must learn about objects, (including people and body parts),
their uses and functions.
The greater the number of objects, whose 'meanings', (uses and functions), are known
the larger is the child's t.r.a.'vocabulary'.
(This might be considered in both reception, [decoding], and expressive, [encoding] aspects)
So the child might learn the meanings, major uses and functions, of foot, and ball.
Putting together a group of objects, (t.r.a. symbols), to more narrowly delimit the
meaning, or use/function, what is to be done, might be called a t.r.a. statement
The assembly will obviously be more complex than the constituent elements, the object-symbols.
So we might have foot + ball presented to a child, (e.g. placing a ball next to a child's foot),
in t.r.a. type 2. This should be understood by the child to mean
"kick the ball"
We might restrict the stage of the process to decoding so that changes in the child's task
are kept more uniform.
So in this sub-section of the scheme we might increase the child's object use/function or vocabulary
by additionally teaching him the uses and functions of the hand, and then we can extend his understanding
of t.r.a. statements, to include
throw a ball,
as well as
kick a ball
Vocabulary and Topic
Let us consider a topic or subject such as anatomy. We are not talking about a sophisticated area of study here,
just an everyday, common, basic amount of knowledge, here about the parts of the human body.
For each topic or subject which is relevant to the needs of the child, he will have to have the appropriate associated
basic everyday vocabulary. He needs the right words, (or in our visual motor system of communication the right symbols,
signs etc so he can talk, or otherwise communicate, about the area.
So in the human anatomy case, the child needs symbols, of some kind, for:-
|----hair
|
|----eyebrow
|
-----head-----|
| |----eyes
| |
| |----nose
| | |---lips
body-----| |----mouth---|
| | |---
| |----chin
|
|
|-----
Diagram d_200
Note another organisation here, this again needs to be born in mind by the teacher. The student does not need to be aware of the structure,
or be able to describe it in symbols. It must simply be present at some level in the child's behaviour, so that e.g. if the stimulus body,
or a symbol of body, is presented to the child, as a sort of free association experiment, the child is more likely to think about, or respond
in terms of, or say 'mouth', than to say 'baked beans'
In a similar way we can discuss other topics such as
food
cookery, ('domestic science')
clothes, (and other 'self-help skills')
health, ('self-help skills'
psychology
As for the last, it might seem odd, and rather ludicrous, to attempt to teach psychology to the s.l.d. child. But no more ludicrous than to try to teach them
geography, or history.
What we are talking about is of course a common everyday psychology, a working, practical, commonsense knowledge of people, of how they behave,
how one can use them to get what you want, (not in the negative sense however)
This topic itself of course is divided into sub-topics, or smaller subjects of study, or teaching.
So we might have something like:-
|----sight
|
|----hearing
|
----senses-----|
| |
| |---olfaction
| |
| |
| |---kinaesthesis
| |
abilities--| |---touch
|
|
| |----bead threading
| |
| |---fine motor---| |---- a vertical line
| | |----drawing--|---- a circle
---motor abilities----| |---- a square
| |---- etc
|
| |---- walk
|---gross motor--|
|---- jump
|
|---- hop
|--- to eat
|
|--- to sleep
motives or goals ------|
|
|---to play
|
|---to get attention and affection
|
|--- etc
|--about things ('physics', and 'chemistry')
|
|--about cooking, and food preparation
knowledge-----|
|
|--about people, human behaviour, ('psychology')
|
|
-- etc
and so on
It might be remarked that I had formulated these ideas 20 years before the national curriculum for s.l.d. children was brought into
practice, (in about 2000?). This does not mean that I always agree with some of its attempts to make the special school curriculum respectable,
and 'normal', since some of its ideas are rather ludicrous, e.g. the s.l.d. child's geography includes knowing where the toilet is,
and his history is knowing, or remembering, what happened last week in the gym class, or what he had for breakfast!
Obviously the attempt was partly fuelled by the 'politically correct' aim to make the child look 'normal', and certainly at least partly
motivated by pressure from parents
Complexity and Syntax
Combining the object 'symbols' together obviously results in an entity of increased complexity.
The mode of assembly into t.r.a. statements should follow certain rules, to be meaningful. In t.r.a. the
rules are perhaps not very complex, (later in e.g. sign they will be more complex)
The three types of t.r.a. are placed in their order of sophistication,
we will want therefore to develop type 1 first, then type 2, and then type 3.
Note that the n.r.a. bases of the three types might be considered as consecutive elements of
an activity. For example Pe2 first sees a ball, then places it by one's foot, and then makes the kicking
action.
In t.r.a., if type 1 doesn't get Pe2 to do as Pe1 wants, Pe drops down to type 2, e.g. he puts the ball by
Pe2's foot, if this fails to get Pe2 to do as Pe1 wants, Pe1 then physically prompts Pe2's
kicking movement.
(Note this is very similar to the process described in#)
Form and Function
One might relate function and use to form
With an object not capable of change, or capable of little change, in its form or shape,
the number of its possible functions will be relatively small.
Examples might be simple inanimate objects, and many animate objects, e.g. parts of the body
such as feet.
On the other hand, (pun intended!), consider an object capable of assumimg a large number
of shapes, and so functions. The prime example of this is the human hand
Possible handshapes can be coded using the Stokoe system, (or a modification of this
suitable to the particular communication system, e.g. sign language)
So for example the G (pointing) hand-shape has the functions of prodding, poking etc
The A (fist) shape has the function of punching etc
From these real actions, as in n.r.a., come symbolic actions, as in
t.r.a., and even sign
We should perhaps teach the functions/uses of objects with fewer posssible shapes,
and so functions, before those with many possible shapes and functions, e.g. teach about
feet, before hands
Other aspects of the Stokoe coding system are
the part of the body the handshape is placed at,
(called the position or tab in this system)
where the hand is moved to,
(called the movement or sig in this system)
These codings, to specify more completely the action, as well as being appropriate to sign,
where the action is a sign, is also appropriate to mime, to n.r.a. and to t.r.a.
demonstration I
( If the task is the simple one of imitation, then the stage is
demonstration-imitation I )
Here the body or body part of one person is used or interpreted
as a general symbol of the body, and can refer to the
corresponding body part of another person. It might be seen as a
very limited type of mime 1, and it is only perhaps used
imperatively. The adult uses this form of communication with the
child, e.g. in the Denver Developmental Screening Test, e.g. to
get the child to stand on one leg. It might be useful to ensure
that such a type is available for the child's expressive communication,
as well as his receptive communication.
(At any time, at any stage, it might of course turn out that the
communication style or level chosen is too high for the child and
one has then to drop down
to a lower level. In giving the Denver
the adult may have demonstrated kicking a ball, to get the child
to do so, if this fails he might have to drop down to t.r.a., and
e.g. place the ball by the child's foot, and if necessary
physically prompt the movement of the child's foot and leg)
As for receptive communication the child might e.g. be got to put
his hands on his head and be rewarded if he does so. One might
start with simple actions and go on to more complex ones.
For expressive communication one might try to develop this, again
by starting with simple, highly motivated actions, do and then
proceeding to more complex and highly motivated ones.
An example of this type of behaviour might be seen in the little boy who,
rather than throwing the adult's hand up to a desired object on a
high shelf, stretches his own hand up to it, perhaps with a vocalisation signifying effort, and
lack of success. What is communicated here is perhaps, "Look
I'm trying to get that, but I can't reach it, I want you to get
it for me". Part of the behaviour still falls into the
t.r.a. category. Here the child might be seen as indicatively
communicating some phase of an n.r.a. process, a stage of a plan,
but what is different about this phase is that it is one where
the person comes up against a serious obstacle and the plan fails.
If the implied imperative is present this would perhaps move the behaviour into the
demo-imitation category.
demonstration II
( If the task is the simple one of imitation, the stage is demo-imitation II )
Here one place can represent another place
For example in Debbie S's knicker dropping communication the classroom represents the toilet.
Here the task for the adult, not explicitly expressed by Debbie, is to give her what she wants, to be taken
to the toilet, not for the adult to imitate her action! We could compare this with her pointing to a photo of
the toilet, to express the same desire, which she could also do, (t.r.a. - p.c.s.). The toilet is symbolised, not by
a photo in the case under discussion, but by
the action, a sort of mime with objects, performed by Debbie.
So the communication is
"take me to the place where one should do what I am doing, pulling down my clothes, (or possibly at a higher level
representing, i.e. defecating and or urinating)"
There is additionally a small amount of t.r.a., longitudinal symbolism, pulling down
clothes precedes the action of sitting on the toilet and then defecating and or urinating
demonstration III
( If the task is the simple one of imitation, the stage is demo-imitation III )
t.r.a. - p.c.s.
This is a hybrid because the symbols, here photos, are dispersed
throughout the environment, throughout real space. They are
strategically placed in certain locations instead of being e.g.
collected in a book, as we will do later, in pure p.c.s. They are
placed in the following locations:-
1. Contents of cupboards, receptacles and other containers are
labelled with photos of the contents of the container. So, for
example, if certain jigsaws and other table top activity items
are kept in a particular drawer, this will be indicated by
placing photos of the individual items on the outside of the
front of the drawer. This practice will be followed for all
receptacles, so the contents of a fridge will be indicated by
suitable photos.
There might be a problem with the symbolism here. Take the case
of the practice of children changing shoes when they go outside,
and placing the inside, or outside, shoes, in pigeon holes or boxes.
We might interpret the photo, e.g. of the child's shoes in a box,
to tell us what is actually in that place. This is fine if the
object is there but not if the object has been removed for use.
We might then interpret the photo as an instruction to put this
item back in the container when you've finished using it. The
system must be as simple as possible, for the lower level child
to learn and understand and the following general principle
should be adhered to:-
One, and only one, sign, should have one, and
only one, meaning.
Here we might discuss the case where, in a
residential school, each child has his own coat peg, in various
places, for example in an entry hall or corridor to the gym, a
public place. To cue the correct activity with regard to the
peg/hook we put by the peg a photo, not just of the child's coat
but of the individual child putting his particular coat onto the
peg. Now the symbolism is:-
This is your peg, put your coat on it
Because the photo is static, a snapshot of a phase of an
activity, instead of a moving representation of the process, it
is ambiguous and could be alternatively read as either
Child C1 putting his coat onto the peg
or
Child C1 taking his coat from the peg
This appears to be a clearer message for the child. Note also
that the photos of the child in this activity were taken with the
child looking at the camera so that he can more easily recognise
himself. An exactly similar thing should be done with the
shoe-boxes where on each box we can put both the child's name and
the activity photo of the child putting his shoes into his box or taking
them out from his box. So also we could follow this process for
the outside of drawers, cupboards, containing things like inset
puzzles, stacking beakers, pegs and rings, etc. In the case of
the child's individual tooth brush kept in the toilet or bathroom we
might also signal the ownership of each brush with a tiny sealed
photograph of the child, or better, of him brushing his teeth,
stuck on to the brush handle.
In the case of refrigerators the point about putting things back
sometimes applies, and sometimes does not. One might take
something out of the fridge, take the food out of the wrapping,
consume the food and throw the wrapping away. In this case we
might go for the easy option of simple photos of the objects kept
in the fridge. The problem of a photo of e.g. a carton of milk on
the door of the fridge when there is no carton in the fridge
still exists. Parents, and parent figures will perhaps just have
to try to make sure the fridge is always properly stocked.
2. Destination or place photos
Doorways
Destination or place photos of the places the child usually goes to,
through a particular door, are placed in a board fixed
immediately beside the door. These are photos of the places only,
empty of people. The photos might be arranged in the board to
reflect the relative spatial locations of the actual places. So
if a place PL1 is to the left of PL2, as the child stands facing
the door, the photo of PL1 is placed to the left of the photo of
place PL2, and so on. In a different dimension, if place PL3 is
further away than place PL4, the photo of place PL3 is placed
above the photo of place PL4,
and so on. This latter convention exactly reflects visual
experience, in contemplating a real scene, or a landscape
painting. This forms a kind of photo map. The important, high
reward places and/or those which the child often goes to via that
particular door will of course be chosen for the group of
pictures by the door. Examples include the toilet the child uses,
the place where the child eats, the place where he sleeps, the
play area and so on.
( 1 and 2 might be thought to be similar in type as both are
placed on the route to an object, place, etc)
A door, (or rather a doorway,
the door itself being an obstacle, which must be removed, by
opening it), is one means of access between one place and
another. We may also mention stairways.
Stairways
These allow one to go from floor to floor e.g. from downstairs to
upstairs, or vice-versa. At the foot of the flight of stairs
might be placed photographs of the places one can get to by going
up the stairs, i.e. a view of
the floor it leads to, and of the doors to the rooms which lead
off it. At the top of the stairs we would have photographs of the
places one can get to by going down the stairs. To avoid confusion it is helpful to place
photos so that the photos of e.g. the upstairs are more easily
and naturally seen when one begins to go up the stairs, and similarly for the case of going
down the stairs. With some architectural arrangements of stairs this is relatively easy to
achieve. In the case of a stairway, or set of these, which lead
to a number of different floors we might employ this type of
symbolism, which seems quite natural and consistent with the rest
of the system. In the board at the foot of the stairs, (on the
first, or ground floor), in the bottom row we will place the
photos of the places on the next floor up, e.g. the first floor.
In the next row up, in the board, we'll place the photos of the
places on the second floor, while in the top row, (if there are
four floors, we'll place photos of the places on the third
floor). For the return journey, going downstairs, we will have to
proceed similarly, but with this complication. As well as the
stairs leading downwards to the lower floors they lead more
remotely to places outside the building. The boards relating to the
downstairs journey might therefore need to be more complex than those
relating to the upstairs one.
Lifts or Elevators
As another means of accessing places on different floors of a
building, these also might be labelled pictorially.
Long routes and critical, choice points
If the route from place PL1 to PL2 is long and, or there are many
critical and choice points e.g. doorways and stairways and landing
etc. we will need replication of destination place photos along
the route. As well as being necessary to label the route this
will also obviate the need for staff to take a copy of the photo
of the place the child is going to with them to periodically
remind the child where he is going. This might be necessary,
especially if the journey is a long one.
Note that as well as needing to label the outward journey, we need to do the same for the
return journey.
As an added refinement to the symbolism of the system one could
represent how far any particular place is from some
place or destination, by the size of the photo of the
place or destination fixed at that point on the route. So if one is
at place PL2, far away from place PL9, the photo of PL9 ( fixed
at place PL2), will be small. As one gets closer to PL9 the photo
of PL9 will get larger.
This is, of course, a concrete
representation of a person's perceptual experience. For the
moment however we might ignore this possibility and go for the
simple procedure of keeping all place photos of a fixed size, six
inches by four inches.
3. Activity Photos.
We take and fix up photos of the children engaging in the
activities which regularly happen in, and are characteristic of,
a particular place. For example we have placed photos so:-
photos of class activities put up on the wall of a classroom,
photos of cooking or washing up dishes etc. put upon the wall of
the kitchen,
photos of a specific child sleeping, tidying his bed, getting
dressed etc put upon a wall of his bedroom
and so on.
Note that this type of activity photo is closely related to the
type of activity photo discussed under 1 above. The activity
photo by an object, has reference to just this object, to a very
restricted area of space, but the activity photos placed on the
wall of a room and so on are somewhat more general and refer to
the whole room or other place they are in. The process by which
the more specific case leads to the more general one is similar
to the process whereby t.r.a. - p.c.s. leads to pure p.c.s.
Objective vs subjective views
Note that there are two ways of taking activity photos, resulting
in an objective view or a subjective view. In the first an
ordinary photo of the child is taken. This might include the
child's body and his face, perhaps a front view. It's the view of
the child someone other than the child will usually get of him.
In the second, one tries to obtain the sort of view the child
will get of himself. This will not include his face, (unless he
is looking in a mirror), but might include, as well as the
external environment, a view of his arms and hands, his legs and
feet etc.
There are advantages and disadvantages in each type. In the
subjective case, the view is helpful in showing someone how to
perform a certain action, e.g. how to tie a certain type of knot.
Another advantage is that this view would meet the objections of
some parents to having their 'autistic' children photographed. A
disadvantage emerges if we develop the picture system to a point
where the child may specify which particular person he means, by
placing a sharp clear photo of a specific person onto the fuzzy
blurred face photo of someone engaged in an action. This
obviously cannot be done for this type of view. In the objective
case an advantage is that we can perform this process. In group
activities the child gets an objective view of the others engaged
in the activity which he is engaged in. Also, in pointing to an activity
photo of someone else engaged in an activity, he does apply the activity to
himself, since the usual, and default, meaning of such a point is
that the child wants to do the activity himself.
4. Sequences of photos describing the successive stages of a plan.
Just as in single photos of objects, people, places and activities, the
criteria by which the adult selects pictures to be displayed include
a) obviously, as in the case of single activity photos, the plan and the
component activities therein must be appropriate and relevant to the
place in which it is displayed. So, for example we will have a picture
sequence describing the steps of a recipe, e.g. to make a cup of tea,
to make beans on toast, etc. up on the walls of the kitchen, in t.r.a.
- p.c.s. (Later, in pure p.c.s. the photos will be collected into a
photo recipe book, and in s.c.s. the book will be a symbol recipe book)
b) pictures relate to the interests of the child, to his goals. There is
no point in displaying the recipe for cooking tripe if nearly all of the
children the scheme is designed for are revolted by this food!
c) pictures are selected by the adult to be related to acceptable behaviours
of the child. As said elsewhere we don't include a photo of little Jimmy thwacking
little Mary in the activity photos in a room. Similarly we might not provide the
child with a picture recipe for a meal which, although tasty for him, might be highly
unhealthy
d) the picture plan is selected by the adult to be most efficient and best for the
child, taking into account his abilities.
How does the child use the picture sequences?
As with any plan, the child will first select the goal he is interested in, e.g.
drinking a cup of tea. He will look through the sequences, at the last activity picture
of the sequences, and choose the one he wants.
Then he must take into account his present actual situation, and try to match this with a picture
in the sequence, either perfectly or as near as he can get. He must change his actual situation
into what is represented in this picture as efficiently as possible. When that is achieved he merely
proceeds along the sequence, doing whatever is illustrated, and producing the successive illustated
situations.
In the case of the kitchen the first photo should be the situation of the actual kitchen, with the child
simply standing there. This is something the adult must provide. If the plan is making tea, if the process
pictured involves the child using a particular kind of apparatus to boil the water, obviously that apparatus
must be present in the kitchen, ideally in the same place as it is shown in the picture.
5. Photos of the interior of rooms
We take a photo of the interior of the empty room and display it
by the outside of the entrance door to the room. This shows the
viewer of the room who uses the room and what they use it for,
via the image of the activity photo display. Often, to get a
clearer view of the activity photos, we may use two photos:-
a. a general view of the room taken from the doorway.
b.a close-up view of the activity photos array.
Photo b. is placed above photo a. to reflect the fact that, as
you stand by the door, b. is further away from you.
A photo is taken of the empty room e.g. classroom, as an attempt to
portray the room only, and not to make a statement about who is in fact
in the room. If we took a photo of the occupied room, e.g. classroom, with the
pupils in it, this might give the impression that these people
were in the room and they may not be. But perhaps this doesn't
really solve the problem since the photo could be regarded as
meaning that the room was empty,
and it may not be. One solution to the problem would be to have a
photo of the empty room and, by the side a photo of the occupied
room. A shutter could be arranged to slide from side to side so
as to expose only one photo, the one depicting the actual state
affairs. This begins to get complicated however and perhaps we
might adopt the practice of taking a photo of the room interior
which shows only a fairly close up view of the activity photos on
the wall of the room, and not much of the floor space. This could
then be ambiguous as to whether the class members, children and
adults, were actually in the room or not.
General points
By means of this hybrid the transition from pure t.r.a. to pure
p.c.s. is eased.
Coloured photos are far more attractive and interesting to
children than schematic symbols, simple black and white line
drawings. Even children of quite low intellectual ability can
respond to the former, at a simple level, e.g to indicate what
food item they would like.
Permanent, or least long-term, placement
The fact that the photos are always in place, at the right place,
is helpful in getting staff to use the photos all the time. Staff
members don't need to search for them for use; they are already
there in place.
Placement by real objects.
Photos placed by a real object relate the photo to the object, so
that e.g. by a door we place photos of places you can get to, and
usually do get to, by going through that door.
Activity photos are placed away from doors, they relate to the
whole room.
The photos are of children and or adults engaged in the
activities appropriate to the room or other place. So for example
we have photos of children swimming, placed on a wall of the
swimming pool, a photo of children doing class activities on a
wall of a classroom, etc.
Height of shot and height of placement.
It is a good idea to take the photo with the camera held at
roughly the average eye height of the children who will be mostly
using the photos, so, for example, we should take the photo of
the interior of the room, ( 4 ), with the camera held so as to
give the child's view. When fixing the photo we should also place
it at this height. In this way the correspondence between actual
and photo views will be made closer.
Individual versus general, more public rooms.
In our residential schools each child had his own bedroom. So all
the activity photos for that room were of the same single child
engaging in the activities characteristic of, and acceptable in,
that place, e.g. sleeping, making the bed, getting dressed or
undressed etc. The general view of the interior of the room, and
perhaps a close-up of the group of activity photos above it,
placed by the outer side of the door, (like 4 above) would
show
a. it's a bedroom, by looking at what activities are shown
b. it's Mary's bedroom, it belongs to her, by seeing that the child doing the activities is
Mary
In a more public place e.g. a gymnasium where gross motor
activities occur, many different children may use the place. It
is possible just
to use specific children in the photos, at this
level the photos are only ever used to express a desire of the
child.
If child C1 points to a photo of child C2 doing some
activity, it always means that child C1 wants to do that activity
himself, not that he wants C2 to enjoy it! However it is
possible to blur the images of the faces of the children engaged
in the activities in activity photos in the more public places,
to make them refer to any child.
Size of the photos and separation in the board.
The standard six inches by four inches size is used for the
photos, the separation between the individual photos being one or
two inches.
Borders
To distinguish the photos, (and symbols also, perhaps later, the
pictures in the child's environment and form them into a system
we might give all our pictures a border of some type and colour
e.g. blue or green. This is important if adults fill the walls of
rooms with pictures, to 'make it look nice'.
The border will cue the child that he might point to a photo of a
container of orange juice, which is on the door of a
refrigerator, or on the door leading into the kitchen, and be
given this drink.
Selection of photos
The adult's selection of the range of photos to take and put in
place is an expression of the possible communications that are
predicted, accepted and perhaps encouraged, for the children and
adults in a certain place. Which photo is pointed to, which
choice, request etc is made within this range, is up to the
individual adult or child example. For example in class one child
does sometimes pinch another child, but we will not take a photo
of this and put it in the activity photo board on the wall of the
classroom!
(Such things do happen, and the child may want to be able to say
that this happened, e.g. to her, and this is why she is upset,
but at this stage we only wish to show acceptable behaviours. We
might recall experiments by Russian psychologists done many years
ago showing that verbal expressions of negative injunctions were
misunderstood by low functioning children as positives. Such
expressions of untoward events must be left to a later stage,
e.g. to s.c.s.)
Covering and protection of photos
It will usually be found necessary to fix and protect photos by
putting them in a board fixed firmly to the wall, covered with
quite thick Perspex. Some of the children are quite destructive
and will try to pull down photos and tear them up. To make it
easy to replace or add to the photo group the covers of the
boards may be made to slide up or down, or swing open. One of the
disadvantages of photos is that if they are in place for a long
time, and what is represented changes, e.g. a room gets new
carpets, curtains, furniture etc., the photo has to be replaced
by a new one. The photos might be stuck to the board with
'Bluetack' or similar product so that they are easy to change,
when necessary. When photos are covered in this way with Perspex
one has to have a light coloured background. If a dark background
is used one gets confusing reflections from the Perspex, just as,
if one is looking out of a window at night, from a brightly lit
room, one will just see reflections of oneself, and of the
room.
The order of taking and placing photos
In both t.r.a. - p.c.s. and pure p.c.s. there is an optimum way to
do this, so that the photos are as accurate as possible in
representing the place. This is:-
1. Take the activity photos for a particular place
2. Put them in position on a wall of the place, away from a
door.
But they do not show the image of the activity photos and
so:-
3.Re-take the activity photo and replace the old
activity photos with the new one.
But this does not show an image of--
This could go on and on indefinitely but the inaccuracy becomes
very slight and practically unnoticeable as the images get
smaller and smaller, so we can stop quite early in the process,
probably at stage 3.
4.Take the photo of the place Px, from the door,
and use this as a destination or place photo, which is placed
a.outside the room Px, by the door
and
b. inside places, e.g. rooms, by doors which lead out to the
place Px.
By this means
the photo of the place is more accurate because it shows
something actually in the place, a set of activity photos.
one can see, in the place photo, not just what place it is, but
what activities can be done there. This means that an early,
elaborate communication might be possible.
a. By pointing to the place photo the child can show what place
he wants to go to or the adult can show the child where he wants
him to go.
b. By pointing to the image of an activity photo in the place
photo the child can show what he wants to do in that place or the
adult can show the child what he wants him to do there.
This means of course
that the place photo has to be big so that the images of the
activity photos are large and clear enough to be easily seen.
This means that the place photos should perhaps be larger than
6" x 4".
Updating photographs
It is of course necessary to update photographs and replace the
old photographs, (which in t.r.a. - p.c.s. are put up on walls, by
doors etc.), when there is a major change to the appearance of a
place. This might occur if the place gets new carpets, curtains,
decoration or furniture etc. The first two may not be of
relevance in the institute, where such soft furnishings are not
used, (although as said elsewhere, these items might be
desirable, to reduce the noise levels in classrooms etc.). But it
is possible that the walls might be repainted, and if this is in
a different color one would have to re-take the photo of the
place and replace the old one with this.
Use of the photos
The child may point to any of the photos to express a desire,
e.g. to the toilet destination photo, to the photo showing the
contents of a drawer or cupboard, to one of the activity photos
on the wall of a room, and so on.
Pointing
This is the means of indicating the photo, and therefore the
thing represented, of indicating what the child wants.
The point may be initially quite crude, a whole flat hand touch
point, but later may be refined into an index finger distance
point.
Clearly the point, especially the whole hand point, is a
preliminary act to the manual act of grasping a desired
object.
The child's home
Here we adopt a similar system. The precise format will depend on
the architecture of the particular house. So we put photos of the
things that the child might ask for, on the doors of cupboards,
drawers, refrigerators and so on. We put a photo of the kitchen
on the outside of the kitchen door and perhaps also, above this,
a close-up view of the door of the fridge, to show the contents
photos, if the kitchen is a separate area. If there is an
upstairs, and the bedrooms are on this floor, photos of the
upstairs rooms will be placed at the foot of the stairs, in a
position where they will be more likely seen as the child climbs
the stairs. His bedroom will be among these photos and so, when
he is tired, he may take his mother to these photos and point to
his bedroom photo. When he wants a shower or bath, or if the
mother is taking him for a shower or a bath, and this room is
upstairs, the photo of the place, which is fixed in the same
group as the bedroom photo, may be indicated.
An important group of photos will be placed by the side of the
door which leads out of the house. This will include all the
places the child goes to from the house. Examples are the shops,
the school, houses of relations and friends, and so on. By
pointing to one of these photos the child can indicate a desire
to go to the place represented, or the parent can tell the child
she is going to take him there. This information from the mother
should be given just before they go out, otherwise the child may
not connect the point to the photo and the going out.
At the top of the stairs might be a board with photos of the
places, e.g. rooms, one can get to on the ground floor by going
downstairs. These will be sited so they will naturally be seen as
the child goes downstairs. The child could indicate, for example,
that he wants to go down to the kitchen. If a close-up photo view
of the activities board for that room was shown above the first
photo he could show he wants to drink something. Alternatively
the photo of the kitchen door may be shown, and a close up photo
view of the contents photo shown above it, e.g. the refrigerator
with drinks photos, amongst others, on the door. Likewise he
could first, show that he wants to go down to the hall by
pointing to that photo, and
second, may also point to a close-up view of the
destination/place board by the side of the exit door from the
hall, placed above the general hall view, to show he wants, for
example, to go to the shops.
(We see that the aim of the system is to provide the means for
the child to indicate his wishes with a minimum of gross motor
activity, no matter how complex the message.)
Mirrors
These are, I think, important and allow the child to get an
objective view of himself similar to the one which he will get
from a photo of himself. These should be placed in all rooms. In doing activities the child
might glance in the mirror and get an external view of himself
carrying out the activity, which may help him to properly
interpret a similar photo of himself, or others, doing the
activity.
Note that it is possible that the child is not even at the mental
level at which he recognises himself in the mirror. This can be
tested for by the mirror recognition test. If he cannot recognise
himself in the mirror he will not recognise himself in a photo
and perhaps some sort of training intervention might be attempted
to bring him to this stage. The mirrors should be full length
and, if there is any possibility of accidents, made of safety
materials.
p.c.s. (photo communication system)
Relationship with the previous stages
The advance over demonstration is that flat 2-D pictures, (photos), of objects,
situations, and events represent the objects, situations, and events themselves
The advance over the hybrid, or compound t.r.a. - p.c.s., is that in pure p.c.s.
the space between the objects, etc in different pictures is represented in a slightly
different way. In t.r.a./p.c.s. the pictures are dispersed throughout the environment
so that real space is symbolic of a different real space, in a similar way to that in
which real objects, represent the objects
s.c.s. (symbol communication system)
Relationship with the previous stage
The difference from, and advance over, p.c.s. is that here the symbols, the 2-D pictures,
are more schematic and represent members of a wider, more abstract class.
By adding features to these however we can make the symbol have a specific reference, like a photo.
The photo of Amanda represents Amanda only, not some other girl. In contrast the symbol for girl, a schematic,
generalised figure, represents any member of the generalised class, 'girls'. But to this picture we can add some
distinctive features, e.g. Amanda's brown eyes, and dark brown hair, of a certain length and style.
This is like putting two Euler, or Venn, circles, together, and the overlap or intersection is the class of
girls who have these characteristics. If the characteristics are very distinctive, especially if the class is also
delimited by the situation or context, e.g. to girls in this particular school, then the class might only have one
member, e.g. Amanda. This procedure relates the stage to a higher stage, that of sign, and its use of name signs,
where e.g. a girl in the group who habitually wears large hoop earrings, is referred to by making this sign. In this
case proper names are not used. This must be a real advantage with the s.l.d. child, who, although he may come if his
name is called, could be doing this very much as a dog does, on a low level, possibly only respondong to the tone
of voice, and by no stretch of the imagination can be said to know his name. Even more preposterous is to translate
the spoken into a written name, and add this to the general symbol of a child, and expect the s.l.d. child to understand
this, as referring to a specific person!
For much more information on the characteristics of a good symbol system see the following articles
on communication, 'Developing Communication', (II, III, and IV)
mime
Relationship with the previous stages
This type can clearly be related to, and can be seen as a development from,
n.r.a., and t.r.a.
A similarity is that in all these forms all of the communicator's body is used.
The main difference is that in t.r.a. the communicator uses actual non-self objects,
as well as all of his body, and that all these have symbolic significance.
In mime however, apart from the communicator's body, no other objects are used, at
least not as part of the communication, these objects are represented by the mime's
actions
sign
Relationship with the previous stages
A difference and advance over s.c.s. and p.c.s. etc is that the signer has to
make his symbols, whereas in s.c.s., p.c.s., etc. this perhaps is not usually the case,
the communicator usually just selects the symbols he wants, (involving recognition)
We can divide this into various types.
type 1
Here a handshape might form a picture, possibly very schematic, of an object,
(and possibly form part of a represented situation or event etc)
For example a fist hand shape, 'A' hand in the Stokoe system, can represent a person's head
This type can clearly be related to, and can be seen as a development from,
s.c.s.
type 2
This type involves the hand formed into different shapes appropriate for holding
and using different objects, and which therefore can represent these objects
For example we have the hand shape appropiate for holding, and therefore symbolic of,
a tea-cup, handshape 'F'
This type can clearly be related to mime
The similarities are that both do not involve actual objects, (apart from the communicator's
body)
The differences, include the feature that in mime the whole body is used, while in sign
only the top half of the body is used. This makes it necessary for greater symbolism to be
used, e.g. for one part of the signer's body to represent another part, either of his own body
or of someone else's body, e.g. the fingers of the hand to represent the legs, as in the famous
symbol of walking (in b.s.l, this is the sign involving the V (two dots or very short vertical
lines on top) handshape)
Two additional aspects of the communication, are
the body part the handshape is placed at, termed the position or tab, in the Stokoe system.
the body part the hand is moved to, termed the movement or sig, in the Stokoe system.
So we have the sign for eating, or for food, where a
^
B
handshape is placed at the mouth,
(with two little repeated movements towards the mouth)
This is virtually mime, and with a simple single substitution, of an actual piece of food for empty space,
we get n.r.a., and t.r.a.
If the full Stokoe type symbolisation of the sign for 'food' or 'eat' is
^
x B T ^ (and more)
we might put in a piece of code for 'no object actually held', e.g. a zero inside square brackets, and get something
like
^
x B [0] T (plus so and so)
In n.r.a., and t.r.a., with an actual object we will insert the name of the object, so we might have something like
^
x B [grape] T (plus so and so)
As for n.r.a. and t.r.a. the coding must be extended to involve other body parts,
other than the hand, e.g. the foot.
The hand case might be explicitly coded as
^
x [hand = B] [grape] T (plus so and so)
while in the foot case we might have something like
[foot] [ball] (plus code for type of movement)
(We might assume that the shape of the foot is more or less invariable)
We should really add code for part of foot used,
and a code for movement, perhaps giving us
[foot-(toe)]------>[ball]----->
This could indicate a fast follow through movement.
type 3
In this type the hand traces out the shape of an object.
For example the signs for room, ball etc.
What other types of communication is this type of sign related to?
My first thought is the standard way in which a man can represent a (shapely) woman, by tracing
part of the outline of her body.
It could indicate what the signer would like to do with the object, the woman, and in this case
this form would have a connection with sign type 2.
It is clearly related to communication through drawing
type 4 - Pointing
This is a common feature of sign, (as well as of p.c.s., s.c.s., etc.)
The handshape used, in the Stokoe system is 'G'
A point to oneself can mean 'I' or 'me', (note incidentally the lack of a differentiation between the
pronoun in the subjective or objective case, as in some oriental languages, there is no distinction, the
context must make this clear.
A point to another person can mean 'you'
A point to an object can mean this particular object, or another member of the same class of objects, e.g.
a point to a part of one's body can mean this particular part of the signer's, or another person's body,
(this latter feature recalls demonstration I)
Note that the point is obviously derived from the reaching out to grasp an object, in n.r.a. and t.r.a.
The first deliberate communicative points are whole hand points, (handshape '5', or perhaps 'B'), which is
probably the hand shape involved in the reaching behaviour in n.r.a. and t.r.a.
Later, as the child becomes more sophisticated in this behaviour, he will adopt a more precise forefinger point,
(handshape 'G')
Other types
There are some intrusions from English into sign, and these types will not form part of our system
For example, here consider
finger-spelling,
the signs, in B.S.L., for mother, father, etc
Subdividing the area, here sign, into sub-types, makes it easier to relate this group of communication types
to earlier types, or groups of types, e.g. t.r.a., demonstration, mime etc
For more information on sign, and its importance for the s.l.d. child, see the following articles on communication,
'Developing Communication', (II, III, and IV).
Relations between P and R
A person being aware of some aspect of R,
awareness or perception of an object
e.g.
Fred sees the cat
awareness or perception of a situation
e.g. Fred saw that the cat was on the sofa
awareness or perception of an event
e.g. Fred saw the book fall
awareness or perception of a relation, temporal or causal, between two events
e.g. Fred saw that the boy struck a match and set the curtains on fire
The awareness of a causal connection might be found at varying levels some quite primitive
Such a series will provide a means of teaching the idea of cause, in particular, as a relation between
two specific events, and in general, in the abstract.
a.
child hears the end of morning school bell and expects dinner, like Pavlov's dog.
His expectation that, given x, y will follow, is based on a past history of perceiving x, and then
perceiving y.
A history which might be coded as
b.
He might be able to symbolise 'bell' and 'dinner'
c.
He might be able to also symbolise the relation between these two.
e.g. "the bell went and then we went to dinner"
d.
He might be able to collect a large number of past occurrences, and put them into a table such as
diagram_d106
e.
He assumes, (at a low level, the assumption might be hard wired in), that the future will be like the past
A person acting on R,
The involves the person making a change in some entity in R, in an object, situation etc,
i.e. in the value of some attribute of the entity.
The person might act on an:-
object e.g. Fred kicked the ball. Here the attribute
of velocity, and spatial position, of the ball might be changed.
situation e.g. Fred put the book on the table. Here
the relation between the book and the table, might be changed, e.g. the book may have previously been under
the table, on the floor etc
event e.g. Fred stopped the ball from entering the goal.
process e.g. Fred ??????????
(For further discussion see below under
"Creation of an entity, i.e. object, situation, event, or process"
and
"Alteration of an aspect of an already existing entity, i.e. object,
situation, event or process").
Relations between P and S and R
A person being aware of some aspect of R and making a statement about it
Here we might have entities such as
Fred says that he sees the cat
A person having information about something, and using the information to act out a plan to achieve a goal.
The information might be of the form that e1----->e2, the person knows this at a very low level,
something almost like classical or sign learning.
The plan might again be primitive, something not dissimilar to operant or instrumental learning,
e1----->e2, I want e2, so I will
bring about e1.
The person does e1, and then expects e2 to follow
A person having an attitude to something.
As for this, what it is the person has an attitude towards might be any entity in R, e.g.
an object, a situation, an event or a process.
His attitude might be positive or negative, or neutral, and these of varying degrees perhaps, signalled by smiles or frowns of the person.
For example take the case of a purely physical event, involving inanimate objects, and not involving a person, in R. As an example think of
a fire.
If the objects involved in this are your precious books this is unacceptable to you, (the P in the triangle), and your attitude is negative,
(the objects involved in the event or process are the wrong objects)
If the fire is taking place on the carpet of the living room this is also unacceptable, the fire is in the wrong place.
If the fire is taking place in the 'proper' place, e.g. the fireplace in the lounge, this might again be unacceptable because its the wrong
time, e.g. in the middle of a hot summers afternoon.
We may not find the fire itself unacceptable, but only one of the above characteristics. So e.g. we may have a fire in place A, and want it to
be in place B, the survivalist takes the little fire he has started in a bit of kindling in a piece of wood by the use of his fire drill and transfers
it to the combustible materials of a prepared campfire.
This is n.r.a.
Later this might be signalled to another person, (t.r.a.)
Then we could have the n.r.a. involve a P, (or an O)
Then we could signal this to the same, or a different person; (now we are in t.r.a. again)
Of course the mere fact that we do, or try to do, a thing implies
that we want to do it, want it to happen. Specifically to try to bring
about some value of some attribute of the object, situation, event or
process implies that we find this value acceptable or indeed desirable.
For example if we are trying to get Amanda to sit quietly at the dinner
table this implies that we find this state of affairs acceptable, and
desirable.
In order of complexity, as we know, the entities in R are
objects
situations
events
processes
The attributes of objects, which can have different values, are
spatial location, size, weight, shape, color, etc.
The attributes of situations, which are made up of objects, can
obviously vary in the same way, but in addition there are the
attributes of relations, e.g. spatial, between the objects.
The attributes of events, which are made up of a series of
situations, as well as varying in the two above ways, can also vary
in
spatial location,
and
temporal location.
The attributes of processes, or groups of events, can, as well
as varying in all the ways described above, vary in these ways:-
the relations between the events, e.g. temporal, causal.
The attribute which we may wish to change the value of, and which
change will indicate the desire to change it, must obviously be
capable of being changed.
Some of these attributes can be easily altered, e.g. the spatial
location of an object. Others cannot be changed in the same way,
e.g. the temporal location of an event. Time travel is not possible,
at the moment anyway. The only way of altering the time is to wait for
time to pass naturally. So I suppose here comes the magic word
"later!", or "soon!", and whatever we think is the visuo-motor,
(e.g. t.r.a., symbol, sign etc.) equivalent.
We can think here of the well-known delayed reaction animal
experiments. For success the amount of delay will be very small, in
both humans and non-human animals, in the absence of sophisticated
internal symbolic processes.
We might remark here that the ability to wait patiently for something
to happen, and be alert and ready to do some particular thing when it
does happen is an important skill, something we might have to
teach our s.l.d. children. This would obviously have to be planned,
with the child initially just learning to wait a short time, as in the
animal delayed response experiment, and then progressing to longer
waits, and the use of internal mediating, representational processes.
An example is waiting for a kettle to boil, and then pouring the
boiling water onto a tea-bag in a tea-cup.
We know that the s.l.d. child has a strong Id, in comparison with his
Ego. As part of this he finds it difficult to delay gratification of
a need or desire. This ability will, as said above, need to be
developed.
Creation of an entity, i.e. object, situation, event, or process
This follows the usual pattern of a plan, a preparation, in which an
object, situation, event or process is brought into being.
So :-
1. Select object
2. Put it in some place - a 'work place'
3. Put it into some relation with another object, create a
situation.
4. Set the objects into some activity, create an event/process
As our plan paradigm we also need to consider
goal achievement, success or failure
Note that the structure of
object, situation, event, process
occurs also in the above plan paradigm - here we have two dimensions
which sort of lie alongside each other.
Cases
We take or select an object, then put it into the work space, together
with other objects. We put these into some situation. Then we act on
the objects in the situation to produce an event etc.
Alteration of an aspect of an already existing entity, i.e. object,
situation, event or process, keeping the values of all the other
attributes the same.
In a situation which already is in existence, or an event or process
which is already occurring, independently of us, to alter, or try to
alter some aspect of the entity is to imply that the former value of
the attribute is less acceptable to us than is the value of it which
we are trying to achieve.
Note that this is a substitution of one value of the attribute for
another. There are two components of this substitution:-
(a) change from the initial value.
This implies that we find this value unacceptable one for the
object, or situation, or activity, etc. in question.
(b) change to the new value. This implies that we find
this new value acceptable for the object, situation or activity
etc. in question.
The new value is a goal for the person
Cases
object
situation
Entity:-Event or process
Attribute:-spatial location
Current value:- place pl A
Intended or goal value:- place pl B
Take a puppy dog which is about to urinate or defecate on the carpet.
We yank it up and transfer it as quickly as possible to the little
toilet we have made for it. We are indicating by this that we find the
place it chose to urinate or defecate unacceptable, and are showing
what is an acceptable place. Note we are not 'saying' that the
urinating or defecating per se, in itself, is unacceptable,
(or we might have shoved a cork up the animal's anus), just
where it was doing it.
So also in the case of an s.l.d. boy or girl masturbating in the
lounge of their unit. We would like to show that that activity is not
acceptable here, but OK in your bedroom, by moving them to their
bedroom quickly, without stopping them masturbating. This is obviously
however practically a difficult proposition.
(We say we want the dog to defecate on the little toilet we have made
for it, and not on our carpet. But it's not really that we want
it to shit on its toilet pad, just that if it must defecate, we'd
prefer it to do it on its pad rather than on the sofa, or carpet etc.
The case is a relativistic one, as usual. If the animal didn't crap at all,
and didn't need to do so, and was happy and healthy not shitting, this would
please us the most, but this is a biological impossibility, the dog must
defecate.
As far as our S.L.D. child is concerned and our communication system for him,
we will want to keep things simple. So we will just think in terms of an
adult or child wanting so and so, (represented by the person smiling),
or the adult or child not wanting so and so, [or better expressed, wanting
not so and so], represented by a frown.
We might also use a neutral expression, for a state of indifference.
Later we might measure the attitude by smiles and frowns of varying degrees
of strength, e.g.
broad smile (++), ----- smile (+), ----- neutral expression (0), ----- frown (-), ----- intense frown (--)
This would be a sort of ordinal level of measurement and symbolisation, etc etc)
Here the substitution of one value of an attribute for
another concerns the attribute of spatial location of one of the
objects involved in the event or process. There are two components of
this substitution:-
(a) removal of the object from the initial location, place A.
This implies that we find this place an unacceptable one for the
activity in question.
(b) movement of the object to place B. This implies that we find
this new place acceptable for the activity in question.
Entity:-Event or process
Attribute:-object(s) involved
Current value:- object o1
Intended or goal value:- object o2
Again take our puppy which is chewing the edge of the
carpet. We remove the carpet from its mouth and as quickly as
possible substitute its chewy bone, putting this in the
animal's mouth. We are indicating by this that we do not find its
action with the carpet acceptable, and are showing what is an
acceptable object. Note we are not 'saying' that the chewing per se,
in itself, is unacceptable, (or we might have put a muzzle on the
animal), just what it was doing it to.
So also in the case of an s.l.d. boy or girl tearing up some of our
best books. We would like to show that that activity is not
acceptable with those objects, but OK with some old newspapers, by a
quick substitution of the newspapers for the books.
Entity:-Event or process
Attribute:-action(s) involved
Current value:- action a1
Intended or goal value:- action a2
Again take our puppy which is lying down at ease on its
toilet. We quickly remove it from the toilet and onto the floor. We
are indicating by this that we do not find its action with the
toilet acceptable, this is for urinating and defecating, not resting
on. We are showing it where it should be taking its ease. So
also an s.l.d. child spinning its cup on the table. We take it from
him and pour some tea into it for him to drink.
We discussed the case where one's attitude to an event is determined by one's attitude to a
particular attribute of the event, e.g.
what objects were taking part in the event, e.g. being used in the event or activity,
where the event or activity was taking place
when the event or activity was occurring
and I suppose
who was doing the activity*
as in our example of the toilet training of a puppy dog
As a comic example of this type see the Red Dwarf episode, (I think 'Polymorph'), where Lister is reminded
by the Cat that he can only practice his guitar in outer space, outside the spaceship, as no-one
can stand to hear him play!
This is closely comparable with our dog-shitting example. We accept that the dog must defecate and urinate
but it must do so on its toilet mat.
We would be quite happy if the dog did not shit at all, if this was biologically possible but it has to, so
in that case let it shit on its mat, as being the least of possible evils.
The rest of the crew perhaps wouldn't mind if Lister didn't play at all, but perhaps accept that it makes him
feel better, so accept his playing, as long as it's in outer space!
Another case is where a negative reaction to an event might be expressed by
a negative attitude to a means object essentially or importantly involved in the activity, to
the extent that the means object was put away or at least the attempt made to put it away.
As an example see the s.l.d. girl who puts away, or tries to put away, the blocks used in the DDST
into their box, and the box into the psychologist's case.
More extremely, and ultimately pathologically, are the cases where an extremely negative reaction
to an event is expressed by an extremely negative attitude to a means object essentially or
importantly involved in the activity, to the extent that the means object was thrown away, destroyed,
or threatened with destruction.
Here we have the examples of A. Crilly, and the s.l.d. girl who damaged the sight in one eye.
As a comic example of this type, also involving a guitar, see Father Jack's action on the guitar
which Father Ted has just used to play his song for Ireland, in the episode of this name.
Father Jack hates the song so much that he would like to destroy it. Being immaterial and incapable of suffering
such a fate, the destruction can only be of the means objects used to play the song, e.g. sheet music, and the guitar.
Father Jack attacks and destroys the guitar, he blows it away with a shotgun!
The Father Ted case is more extreme. Father Jack's attitude to the song 'My Lovely Horse', and its original tune,
is such that he will not accept it happening at all, in any place and at any time, under any circumstances. He wants the
song to disappear from the face of the earth.
The parallel with the puppy dog case, would be one where the dog's owners are not prepared to accept the dog defecating at all,
and perhaps shove a cork up the creature's rectum!
*Who does the activity.
This could be considered under 'objects involved in the activity', the first category, but as a special case, a
human grammatical subject or object. It is important because there are many cases where who is doing an activity is very important, as
a determinant of our attitude to the activity. If George Clooney is the person making love to a girl she might very well accept this gladly,
if it's Charlie Chaplin she would not!
Again consider the event, activity or process E x
A person P1 does some action Ac3 with objects obj1, obj4, obj6 etc., in a certain place, Pl 6, at a certain time, T 7.
For example P1, (noun, subject) does something to, (verb, e.g. kicks) (noun, direct object, e.g. ball, with his foot,
(noun, indirect object), or our puppy dog shits on the lounge carpet.
Pe 1, or the other person Pe 2, may have an attitude, + or -, to the action or event, and more specifically to a particular
aspect or attribute of the activity.
As we discussed previously the attitude, positive or negative or neutral etc. might be to
what the activity is
what person, (or other organism), is doing the activity
what the person, (or other organism), is doing it to, or with
where the person, (or other organism), is doing the activity
when the person, (or other organism), is doing the activity
Pe 1, or Pe 2, if his attitude is negative, may wish to change the attribute, and reward any desired
changes which occur
The description of a situation or event, activity, may represent the
actual present situation
or
a desired immediate future situation, activity, (the ultimate goal, including goal object),
or
a sub-goal, (including a sub-goal object)
In the first case, if the attitude of Pe1 is +ve, to the situation or activity, to all attributes of it,
then Pe 1 will be motivated to preserve the existence of the object, or activity, to try to maintain the status quo.
If it is neutral, ( 0 ), he will be indifferent.
If the attitude of Pe1 is -ve, to the situation or activity, to some attribute of it, then Pe 1 will be motivated to
change the attribute to a different value.
This might imply the goal situation or activity and how to achieve it, how to transform the actual present situation into
the desired future situation. This would then be the task of Pe 1.
Model 2
Plans
Choose ultimate goal
A goal should be chosen which satisfies the following criteria
it might satisfy the current dominant need
it is realistic
it might be relatively easily attained, with the least cost, (e.g. effort, monetary cost etc)
This might take into account the
present situation
Formation or modification
Break down the route to the ultimate goal, from the present situation, into a series of sub-goals, and sub-plans to achieve these
Description, encoding, statement of a sequence of actions by P, a process in R which led to a good outcome
what are the materials (means objects) and method
gathering the means objects from their store places
bringing them to their appropriate work areas, e.g. to other objects
initating various events and processes etc
expectation of success
The child's plan might involve
knowledge, at some level,
e.g. that event1 often leads to event3, and this in turn to event4.
The level might be quite low, e.g. he may simply expect e2, if he is aware that e1 occurs. The level might be little more than
classical conditioning, like the buzzer and food, for Pavlov's dog.
motive or goal
If then he wants e3 to happen, if e3 is his goal, he might achieve this by making e1 happen.
(Why does he not just make e3
happen directly? Because it might be much easier to make e1 happen first, or it may not even be
possible to achieve e3 without doing e1 first)
The type of communication in t.r.a. might be of this low level
#
Say we have e1----->e2-------->e3
(e1 = mother taking up the car keys, e2 = mother getting in the car with the child, e3 = mother driving to the shops and buying
sweets for the child
Child can then bring about e1, e.g. give mother the car keys; if that doesn't work he might try to bring about the next step
in the usual sequence, e.g. try to pull mother to the door and to the car etc etc
e1------->e2------->e3
^ ^
| |
| |
child child
(From the store place of symbols the child might select from these to build up his picture, to describe the present situation or
chosen, (active) goal situation. This will follow the sequence of steps described below, forming meaningful assemblies of symbols,
then from these a subset of statements of possible situations and then from these a further sub-set of statements which he believes
are true)
Or the adult might do some of the earlier steps for the child, producing ready-made symbol complexes of possible and realistic goal objects,
goal places*, goal situations and goal events or activities**, and possible and realistic plans to achieve them***, for the child to simply recognise
and select from.
Note that the adult might make a further and final selection of alternatives he presents to the child, he presents acceptable
choices, ones he approves of.
(* In t.r.a. - p.c.s. the destination place photos are examples of *. And here the adult imposes the above mentioned final restriction, he does
not take, and does not present, a photo of the pub down the road from the school!
** Again in t.r.a. - p.c.s., in the activity photos on the walls of rooms, he does not put up on the wall of a classroom a photo of Jimmy
hitting Helen on the nose! )
*** And again in t.r.a. - p.c.s., on a wall of the kitchen the child might see photo sequences showing how to prepare various simple dishes which
he might be able to follow, e.g. making toast, making a cup of tea, making beans on toast etc.
Implementation
Prescription, decoding, and following, as a sequence of orders, S --->responses
Evaluation of plan in terms of success or failure, and the necessary further actions
If there is success in attaining the sub-goal go on to the next, unless the sub-goal achieved is the ultimate goal.
Record the plan which was successful, and the fact it was successful.
If there is failure in attaining the sub-goal, count the number of failures, (e.g. n)
If n < r, try the method or plan again*
If n > r but < s check if the means objects are being used properly and if necessary modify their use
If n > s but < t check that the means objects are functioning properly and if necessary, and convenient,
try to repair them
If n > t but < u change the means objects
If n > u but < v consider changing the sub-goal
If n > v but < w consider changing the ultimate goal
*Comment
The plan may be perfectly sound, as far as it goes, and may usually be successful. But occasionally
some unknown and unpredictable factor, something not represented in the plan, contributes to the outcome,
to what happens if the person does something, and causes a failure. This is something everyone does, we
do something, it fails, we try again and it works!
Diagnosis
Note that the process of checking the plan, if it fails, described immediately above, is one of
diagnosis
Checking that a means object is functioning properly, and if it is not, repairing it, can be modelled by the usual system
for diagnosing faults in equipment, e.g. in an automobile.
One lists
the possible reasons for failure, the possible problems, in order of likelihood,
the tests to establish the existence of the particular fault or problem,
and
the treatment to remedy each diagnosed fault or problem
Of course it's unlikely that the s.l.d. child will ever be in a position to use a car as a means object, what we want to
discuss are things like electric kettles, microwaves, televisions and so on.
For each of these, (and for the exact model the child is to use), we want a diagnostic procedure, for the child, to work
through, should things go wrong.
For example, with the electric kettle the procedure might run something like this
a. switch on
b. fail?
c. make sure the plug is in the wall socket, and is pushed in properly.
(With a large number of plugs, leads, sockets and appliances, the child might have to trace the lead from the appliance in
question to the plug, to find the appropriate plug to check. As an aid the plugs could be labelled, e.g. the kettle plug
with a little picture of a kettle etc, and the leads and sockets given a distinctive colour, e.g. white for the kettle leads
and socket)
d. fail?
e. make sure the fuse in the wall plug is OK
etc
Depending on what the type of communication is, we will have this expressed in the appropriate way, e.g.
in pictures or symbols, in p.c.s., s.c.s. etc
This pictured procedure should be stored close to the place where they will be used, close to their work area.
In the case of problems with the use of a particular means object, this means having the picture schedule close to the
object. So for example, with a kettle, in the case of t.r.a. - p.c.s. this should mean having the procedure discussed
above, in picture form, close to the kettle, on the wall. (In this case, as explained before, the store place of the device
and its place of use, are identical).
Putting the means objects away or throwing them away
Will the objects ever be used again?
If not, throw them away
If yes, will they be used for their original purpose?
The answer to this question can tell us which is the appropriate store place for the items
The appropriate store is one which satisfies these criteria:-
Closeness to the place where they will be used, their work area or areas
Suitability for keeping the items in good condition, for future use
Do the items need to be treated in some way before they are stored, to keep them in good condition, and ready for their next use?
For example crockery and cutlery will need to be washed and dried. Steel tools may need to be cleaned and oiled and so on.
Another consideration is this:-
if an assembly, (of 'real' objects or symbols), has been used, and found to work, to be useful,
e.g. a pictured goal object, or place, or method, (plan), to achieve a goal, might it be a good thing to not break it down
into its elements, returning these to the store, but keep the assembly and return it to an intermediate station store?
The child must be taught to put things away after he has finished with them.
The best way perhaps is to use a real intrinsic motivation. So he might use 'putting away' as a way of indicating that he
has completed an activity, or wishes to end it. But we do not wish to teach the child to use this to escape from
any situation or activity which we want the child to engage in.
So we can cue the child when it is appropriate, or not, to ask for a cessation of the activity, of a task, by beginning to put things
away, or t.r.a.'ing this. We might show the child that he has not completed a task, or that he has not been doing an activity for long
enough. An example of the first, in the Block Design subtest of the WISC, would be if we indicated that his design was the not the same
as that depicted in the relevant page of the Block Design test booklet.
The plan can be of varying degrees of complexity, and of course we will start the child with the simplest type.
The plan paradigm is a good model for organising the child's behaviour so as to be more efficient, (in n.r.a.)
Another reason for using the model is that this gives the child a natural means to communicate to another person
where they are in a series of actions, (e.g. show that they have completed a task, or at least wish to be done
with an activity, by putting the objects involved in that activity away)
The ideal plan structure might be shown in a sort of flow diagram. This is the ideal form, a teaching goal, a
prescription for the child's behaviour. What he might in fact be able to achieve, what he might actually do,
is of course quite another matter. This is a matter of description.
Conventions and symbolism in t.r.a. - p.c.s., p.c.s., and s.c.s.
The present actual situation
To express what is the case by a picture, e.g. in p.c.s., we
just picture the object, situation, event etc. For example we might
have a picture of a cat lying on a sofa
In words:-
the cat is on the sofa
To express this fact, plus the fact that a person is aware of this fact,
and the further fact that he doesn't like it, that his attitude is negative,
we simply have a picture showing a man looking at a cat which is lying on
the sofa, and frowning
In words:-
the cat is on the sofa
the man sees that the cat is on the sofa
the man is not happy that the cat is on the sofa
Here there are three components,
the fact,
the awareness of the fact,
and
the attitude to the fact
The person's attitude to the perceived situation, positive, as shewn concretely
and pictorially by a smile, or negative, as shewn concretely and graphically by
a frown, tells us what action might follow. If the person is happy with the
situation he might do nothing, if he is unhappy with it he will be motivated
or driven to leave the situation or change it.
Mirrors
To show that a person is in a particular place we might simply place a small cut
out full figure photo of the person against a picture of the place. This is natural
if the person is representing someone else in the place. What if he wants to
represent himself in the place? He can't possibly get an outside, objective
view of his whole body, including his face in the ordinary way, but he can do so
with a mirror. So we should have a suitably sized mirror on each wall of a room etc.
Then he might get a view of himself, and of his face, and of his facial expression, against
a view of the room. This expresses the situation,
"I am in the lounge, kitchen", etc
In terms of pictures, for Fred to represent the actual present situation of fred-in-the-kitchen
he will place his cut out figure against the image of the mirror, in the kitchen.
We strongly recommend the permanent placement of mirrors in rooms used by the s.l.d. child.
By this means the child can gain 'objective' views of himself in various activities, and of
his emotional attitudes to these, and associate them with particular rooms and places, and
times etc. This will be a great advantage for the development of picture schemes like the
one we are proposing here.
(Occasionally the child might be distracted from his task by the mirror, and then there
should be an easy way of covering it up temporarily)
The desired situation
How shall we show what the man wants to be the case, what he would like to be the case?
What if we have a picture of the man in the real situation, and holding a picture of the desired situation, the cat not on the sofa,
and smiling at the picture?
This is a good solution for the case where the man is actually holding such a picture but if we only wished to portray the mental state of wanting
something with the man not actually holding a picture of what he wants we have to regard the picture holding as metaphorical. This is a different
convention from the one where the picture of the cat on the sofa means the cat is actually on the sofa. So there would be two different conventions,
for the two cases, possibly not a desirable state of affairs; we want to have total consistency in our symbolisms. In any case the use of metaphor
must be considered to be difficult for the s.l.d. child, as it is for the chronic schizophrenic patient.
[This particular metaphor of the picture holding is an example of our backwards implication type of phenomenon, discussed elsewhere. A person walks
towards a bowl of fruit on the table under the impetus of a drive, a hunger drive, and the action might then be used to represent the prior mental
state of need. So also the picture holding represents the desire for what is shewn in the picture. (The two cases are different however in their
degree of complexity. In the case of walking to the fruit the easily observable, overt behaviour is a simple independent adaptive response, while
in the picture holding, the easily observable behaviour is a communicative reponse, which aims to enlist the help, and/or permission of the adult,
in getting what is in the picture.)
Note that even in the simpler case of 'backwards implication' we have something more complicated than the primitive sequence, seen in simple t.r.a.,
where e.g. the child giving his mother the car keys, means that he want to go out in the car, and this means that he wants to go to the shops,
and this means that he want sweets etc.]
Note that in the more highly developed Demo-Imitation I,
the goal is represented, apart from any specific means to attain it, while in ordinary t.r.a. the means and the goal are indissolubly linked. To be
more accurate the goal is represented by a very late response, (e.g. Debbie S. pulling down her pants (in the classroom),leading to the actual goal,
(of relieving herself in an acceptable way, i.e. on the toilet). This late response is isolated from all the responses which might precede it, e.g.
walking to the classroom door, opening it, going through it, walking to the unit, etc etc etc.
While we might indeed represent a specific plan to achieve a goal, and represent pictorially the ordinary type of t.r.a. sequence, we might only focus
on two essential parts of this, i.e.
the present situation, and the child's attitude to this
and
the desired situation, i.e. a possible future situation, and the child's attitude
to it, here positive, (as indicated by the child's smiling facial expression.)
Note here that the dimension of time is involved, and must be represented.
While a left-right convention might, and often is used, in simple minded systems, this is very artificial. We will instead opt for the
behind-forward time line used in b.s.l.
So the present situation will be represented by a picture located in a plane up close to the symboliser, (to parallel what happens with a b.s.l.
signer, and the possible future situation will be represented by a picture more or less ahead of the symboliser, (again to parallel the case of
the signer)
Recall that this a natural convention because as one walks forward, in gross motor bodily movement the situation immediately around one is the
'here and now', what is ahead is 'there and then', which becomes 'here and now' as one reaches the place which is further ahead.
Note that we say possible future situation, many other things could happen. The future is not certainly knowable and this must be represented
by the picture representing the (actual) future being blank
So what is our first dimension? It involves time, but is not time in the abstract, and as a pure dimension. Instead it is the complex, more concrete:-
I. external events, (R), in time
So with a blank picture, or picture frame, for the future, how do we show what we desire, to be the case, in the future?
For this we need to think of another dimension, orthogonal to, and independent of, the first, time, dimension, in which are arranged the pictures
of events external to us. 'R', (for reality)
This second dimension is the process of making a statement about R, call it 'S', in line with the Ogden Triangle model.
Of course it takes place in time also, so this dimension is:-
II. the process of making a statement, (S), about R, in time
This process involves various sub-processes, so:-
a. collect the required symbols from their store places
b. assemble them
c. put the symbol complexes, the finished pictures, into their 'work place', their frames, e.g. here, into the 'present situation' frame, and the
'future' frame.
Now we know the present situation, and can go ahead and construct the picture. But this is not the case with the future picture. There are things
we do know however, and some of the earlier stages in the process of making our statement, the process of selecting and combining appropriate
symbols, and rejecting others, and rejecting other possible symbol complexes can proceed.
So we know, for example, that
certain symbols, and symbol complexes, are
A. meaningless, and so are not selected.
We know that certain symbols and symbol complexes are
B. not possible, and so are rejected
We know that certain symbols, and symbol complexes, are
C. not true, and so are rejected from the sub-class we form, on the way to the work area, as the last station, perhaps, before the final one.
So for example in the case of a desired future situation, where, if a particular situation occurs, the individual will be happy, (indicated by a
smile), we do not include in the sub-class pictures of the situation and the individual frowning or scowling.
The process taking place in this second dimension is the process of forming a meaningful, and true statement, using in this case, graphic symbols.
Note that we use the term 'statement' to refer both to a description of external reality, and to refer to a description of a need, a desired future
situation
[Some of these stages will of course initially be performed by the adult for the child. So, for example in our t.r.a. - p.c.s. the adult only puts
up
meaningful pictures,
and within this category, only pictures of
possible objects, situations, events, or processes,
and within this category only pictures of
acceptable or desired, or desirable, (to him), objects, situations, events, actions, and processes. (So for example, in t.r.a. - p.c.s.,
we do not put up on a wall of the school gym an activity photo of little Johny hitting little Annie on the head with a plastic rounders bat.)]
Here we see an interaction between two people, adult and child in forming a statement, here one of need. The adult limits the child's choice as
regards what he can do, and denies him certain possibilities
These stages are concretised in the form of a line of little areas leading fom the symbol store place to the appropriate 'work' area, the appropiate
frame, here the 'future' frame.
The following diagram may help to explain matters:-
Diagram d101
The lines from the store to the present situation shew various intermediate stations, where for example, meaningful complexes are selected, possible
ones selected, and true ones selected.
So also for the lines and stations between the store and the prediction of the future event or situation.
Note that it is in the present that one selects and processes symbols from the store to make a statement about the present situation.
It is also in the present that one selects and processes symbols from the store to put in the appropriate last intermediate station,
(e.g. SS2c), ready to be put in the future situation frame when it becomes the present, when one reaches it, or when it reaches the person.
The process, in dimension D4, represented in diagram d_101, can be seen as a a flow chart. The stages in this, of selecting or forming symbol
complexes to make a statement, (S), which is meaningful, and possible, and true, (T), can be described so:-
(1) From the possible symbols and symbol combinations, we must select the sub-set which has, as members,
meaningful, rather than meaningless, symbols and symbol combinations. As a verbal parallel, we will select
'dog', 'biscuit', 'run',
'went to the shops'
etc.
rather than
'plig', 'xrtyvh', etc.
'wall funny blue happy'
etc.
A visual parallel might be a picture of a dog, rather than a picture which is a meaningless scribble, perhaps a Rorschach ink blot.
A member of the meaningful subset says something about the real world, about R, a member of the meaningless subset says nothing about the real
world, about R
(2) From the meaningful subset we make a further selection. We select a subset which has, as members, possible, rather than impossible
symbol complexes or strings. As a verbal parallel, we will select
'went to the shops'
etc.
rather than
'jack walked on the ceiling today'
etc.
A visual parallel might of course be a picture of someone walking to the shops, rather than a picture of jack walking on the ceiling
Impossible statements describe things which cannot happen, either on an a priori basis, or an empirical a fortiori basis.
(3) From the 'possible' subset we can make a further selection of things which are probable rather than improbable. At a more refined
level we can deal with degrees of probability, e.g. an ordinal level, and beyond.
(4) From the 'probable' subset we can separate the subsets of true statements, and false statements, and choose members from the former.
Here we deal with the relationship between S, and R. This has two values, T(rue), or F(alse). The former says what did happen, or what is happening,
or what will happen, the latter what did not happen, what is not happening, or what will not happen.
In the starting, symbol store place can be placed any of the entities in any of the stages from (1) to (4), according to how much help the adult is
giving the child.
Members of the final sub-set, (4), can be placed in SS2c.
Note that there are two views on probability.
We can say that an event has a certain probability
or
We can say that the probability applies to a statement, S, describing the event, more accurately to the truth value, T or F, of the
statement, involving the relationship between S, and R.
We will adopt the latter view, for the purposes of our system.
The process described as D4, is of course applicable to both
1. describing or symbolising what we want to be the case, to happen
and
2. describing or symbolising what we think is the case, did happen, is happening, will happen
In SS2c, in the case of 1, we will end up with a statement which we think describes what we want to happen. This contains a 'primary process'
contribution, from the 'Id', but is certainly not purely this. There is a strong reality component, from the 'Ego', which chooses realistic, practical
goals rather than airy fairy impossible wishes.
In SS1c, (or in the 'present situation'), in the case of 2, we will end up with a statement which we think describes what is the case now.
This is perhaps more purely an Ego reality process, but there might be some influence from the 'Id', from wishes, so that to some extent we may see
things the way we want them to be rather than how they actually are. The more this is the case the slighter is the person's grip on reality, so that
in the extreme case we might have a psychotic condition. Even in normal people the weaker and less definite are the external stimuli, the greater
will be the influence of wishes, (or fears?). So we have some kinds of illusions, and unstructured stimuli, used in projective tests,
such as the Rorschach Ink Blot Test, are designed to reveal personality features such as wishes.*
In SS2c, case 1, in selecting from possible or probable goal scenarios there is often an interaction between child and adult so that the resulting
goal is a resultant of these two forces, a compromise, an expression of the desires of both the child and an adult.
So the adult might limit what he offers to the child as choices. At snack time, (in n.r.a.), he might offer the child a choice between two healthy
options, e.g. an apple, or a banana, but not offer him a bag of crisps.
He rejects the latter, and views it as an unacceptable option. He allows the child, gives permission for him, to eat either an apple or a banana but
not a bag of crisps.
In t.r.a. - p.c.s. the adult does not put up a picture of Fred pulling Jenny's hair in the classroom wall activity photo, (or picture) board.
He does this not because it is impossible, (it is very possible!), and not because it is improbable, (it might have frequently happened in the past!),
but because it is not a behaviour which he finds acceptable, which he wants to happen, and which he will permit,
The extent of the gap between 1, and 2, above, between what is the case and what we want to be the case will determine whether action
occurs. If there is no difference the person will not be impelled to act, if there is one there will be a motivation or drive to try to
change the present situation into the desired one.
In the formation of a plan to reach 1, an important initial step is to be clear about 2, the present situation. We need to know the nature of 2,
where, (or 'where'), we are, before we can determine how to get to 1. In the literal where case, in gross motor locomotor behaviour, if we
want to go to the school dining room we need to know where we are. If we are east of the room we need to walk west, if we are north of it we need
to walk south etc.
If you have a wrong idea of the present situation, (or the goal), you will do the wrong thing, and not get to the goal. Say you are actually 30 metres
due east of the goal place, but think you are 20 metres due S of the goal, your plan will be to go 20 metres due North. This is the wrong plan
and will not get you to the goal.
Or perhaps you have no idea where you are, you have no real plan to get to the goal, (you could try trial and error but this is very inefficient. You
might be in a pea-souper fog in old London town, (before the clean air act came into force)
In the fine motor, adaptive, manual, case, we might have this:-
The start position might be the child in the kitchen, standing at the work surface with a tea bag in a cup and a kettle of just-boiled water.
The start and goal 'positions' are close here, little needs to be done to get to the goal, the child just has to pour the hot water onto the teabag,
wait a minute or so, and then take it out. (He should wait a little then, so the tea is not too hot, and he might add milk and sugar, and stir with
a tea spoon)
The cost of an action, or behavioural sequence
The child, at some level, must estimate the distance, (actual and literal), or 'distance', (figurative), between where, or 'where' he is, and the goal
place, (or situation etc.)
He must estimate the likely cost of the action, e.g. in terms of the amount of effort he might need to expend, in order to reach the goal, to
change the present situation into the desired, goal situation, either by gross motor action or by fine motor - adaptive action.
The cost-benefit ratio
The cost must be seen in relationship to the value of the goal, and a sort of ratio of likely cost to likely goal-value, or benefit, computed.
This consideration might, and should, affect the very goal the child chooses. Goals might be placed in order in terms of how suitable they are. So
the order would, in general terms be as follows:-
Goals of high value obtained easily, at little cost
Goals of high value obtained with difficulty, at high cost
Goals of low value obtained easily, at little cost
Goals of low value obtained with difficulty, at high cost
At a more sophisticated level we would of course measure these two attributes, cost, and benefit, at a higher level, e.g. the ordinal level.
The overall value would be a function of these two factors
These factors determine the reward value of behaviours and responses. So we have the familiar example of a
toy which makes a spectactular display, with the child doing very little with it, making a very simple response. Children love such toys
If there is only a little distance between us and the goal, (literally, or figuratively), little needs to be done to get the goal, there should be a
strong expectancy and anticipation, e.g. as shown by a smile. Sub-goals further away from the main final goal, earlier in the plan sequence, might be
marked by fainter smiles.
If there is only a little distance, (or a little 'distance'), between the actual present situation and the desired immediate future situation, this
uggest that the effort to get to the goal will not be very great, in turn this suggests that the drive to go, or 'go', to the goal situation or place,
will be strong.
Description of the actual event, or situation etc
Consider some event E3. It might be described by a statement, analysed grammatically so
subject, who?
does, did, will do, what?
how?
why?
to whom?
when?
where?
In a whodunnit sort of case we know some things about the event,
What happened, eg that the Vicar was killed by a .38 revolver bullet, at 2.00 a.m. on Sunday morning in the vicarage, at Little Bogglethwaite on the
Marsh.
We don't know who, for the moment
We might have a list of suspects,
Fred
Mary,
Peter,
Rodney
etc
We selected these out of a large number of candidates, on the grounds that
they had the means, (all had a .38 revolver, or easy access to one)
they had a motive, (all had a motive, either financial, or revenge, or whatever)
they had an opportunity, (all were within the area, at the time of the crime, and could have been at the scene at the time of the crime)
Further information can reduce the number of possibilities, e.g. the forensic team determines the firing pattern on the bullet removed from the
vicar's body and rule out the guns owned by all of the suspects except one.
The 'means' could include having a means object external to oneself, and, or having certain physical and mental qualities which the culprit needed
to have to commit the crime. Say the 'crime' is the theft of a bag of crisps which were up on a high shelf in the lounge. Did little Johny do it, or
his older taller sister? If there are no appropriate means objects around, e.g. a chair which Johny could have climbed up on and stood on, the finger
of suspicion points to the sister.
This logical, reasoning process, reconstructing process is here applied to the process of forming an hypothesis about a past event, not part of the
hypothesiser's personal knowledge.
However
The splendid work of F. C. Bartlett shows that such a process is part of an individuals personal memory process.
(One of the few great works of psychology, and this completed long ago, "Once there were giants", (now there are pygmies))
We talk about the present actual situation for our scheme, but of course we could talk about an actual past situation for other
urposes.
It is likely that the 'Bartlett' process might even apply to the present actual situation. If so it is relevant to our scheme. The
construction process might be especially prominent, of course, if the initial sensory or perceptual data used in the process is restricted,
as in our unstructured stimulus type of situation discussed above, at *. So with 'unstructured' stimuli, e.g. inkblots, clouds, flames in a
fire, things seen in a mist, or at night, etc. we will probably see the influence of both factors, needs, and construction processes.
Or, rather than knowing the activity, or event, represented by a verb, (e.g. the crime), we may know, as a hard fact, from report, or from our
own senses, as a start point, in Bartlett's account,
who is is doing, (or did, or will do), something, e.g. Pe5,
and perhaps where and when
but not
precisely what he is doing, (or did, or will do)
To narrow down the possibilities we will ask questions like
what is Pe5
1. capable of doing
and narrowing down even more we can have
2. what does he often do
and even more narrowly
2a. what does he often do in this situation
or
2b. what does he often do in this place
and even more narrowly
what does he often do in this place at this time
Or the place and the time might be obscure. So we start with Pe5 doing something,
and then ask
where does Pe5 usually do that?
and
when does Pe5 usually do that?
etc.
Given a person's schedule or timetable we can deduce
the likely place from the person, the activity, and, or the time
the likely time from the person, his activity, and, or the place
etc
We previously discussed the process, in D4, of starting with the symbol store place, and making successive selections from this, or successive
assemblies, of symbols, to form classes, and more and more narrow sub-classes of statements to go into SS1c, and SS2c, and ultimately, into the
'actual present' frame, and the 'future situation' frame, (when it becomes the present frame)
So, in order we might have
a. meaningful assemblies, (rather than meaningless ones)
and from this group the smaller sub-group of
b. possible, (rather than impossible ones)
and from this group the even smaller sub-group of
c. probably true statements, (rather than probably false ones)
and then
d. the most likely to be true statement
This latter would be put in SS1c, or SS2c
So here the process is being applied to a total assembly or string or statement.
But perhaps we can also apply the process to the grammatical component elements of the statement, and the elements of the event which is described
by the statement.
So we might have this sort of procedure
1a. what could the activity, (represented by a verb), possibly be?
1b. what is the activity likely to be?
etc.
and
2a. what could the person, i.e. who, could the agent, subject, possibly be?
2b. who is the agent likely to be?
etc.
and
3a. what could the place possibly be?
3b. what is the place likely to be?
etc.
and
4a. what could the time possibly be?
4b. what is the time likely to be?
etc.
and so on.
The symbol store place
(This discussion applies mainly to p.c.s. and s.c.s.)
Organisation
The child's task of finding the symbol he needs, especially with a large number of symbols, must be made as easy as possible. This is done by
organising the arrangement of symbols. As said elsewhere, like all store places the initial method of organisation is in terms of place.
This is natural and easy for the s.l.d. child. Such children, even the very mentally handicapped, quickly learn where the good things are, in
their environment.
Pictures of places.
If place Pl2 is between place Pl1 and place Pl3 then of course the picture of place Pl2 will be found between the picture of Pl1 and the picture
of Pl3. In t.r.a. - p.c.s. the placement of the board containing destination photos helps the child in that the orientation has been done for him.
So for example if Pl6 is off to the left of Pl then the picture of Pl6 is placed to the left of the picture of Pl2, as the child stands in front
of the board placed by the door leading out of a room, if Pl4 is further away than Pl1 then the picture of Pl4 is placed above the picture of pl1,
as happens in the actual visual field, in photographs, in paintings of scenes, and so on.
Pictures of people
These will be small cut out pictures, e.g. photos, whole body front view of the specific person. These might also be organised in terms of place,
with a picture of a person Pe4 being stored by a picture of a place where he is most often to be found, and most closely and uniquely associated
with him e.g. his office, in the case of a school staff member, by a picture of his bedroom, in the case of a residential school pupil. The facial
expression will be neutral
Pictures representing attitudes
These will be little cut out faces having different expressions, representing different emotions/attitudes to whatever the person is thinking about
or seeing or hearing or tasting or doing etc. The two most important expressions will be the extremes, smiling = happy with the situation the person
is in, or frowning = unhappy with the situation. They can be placed on the neutral expression face on a figure to make the statement that the person
concerned is happy or unhappy with the situation he is in. These graphic symbols will be organised with reference to activities. So we might choose
an activity the person likes, and there we will obviously expect to find the smiley face. On the other hand we will associate and store, the frowning
face with activities the child does not like. To make things general and more understandable we might choose an activity that nearly all children like,
and like very much, e.g. eating their lunch. We might choose a special meal on a particular day that most children are very fond of, e.g. fish and
chips for Friday lunch. This will be especially important when we get to the s.c.s. stage, where we are using schematic symbols with a general
reference. (See Chinese characters for 'good', a very schematic woman and child, - it is good for a woman to have, or look after, a child)
Pictures of activities
These might also be organised in terms of place, with a picture of a gym activity, e.g. doing some gross motor activity such as circuit training,
being stored on the picture of the empty gym
To refine things further, since people are highly mobile and many activities can be done in one particular place the further dimension of time
might be considered, and represented. So if we know the place, and the time we might be more certain that we will find person Pe5 in that place,
or find activity Ac5 going on in that place.
This requires a consultation of the person's timetable, or the timetable of the place.
This 3-D type of organisation, might be shewn concretely in a sort of pigeon hole device, perhaps made out of perspex. Take the case of events and
ctivities, and places. An appropriate device to house our symbols, in the store might be:-
Diagram d102
This sort of organisation and symbolism is consistent with the symbolism to be used in the model to be used to depict the present actual situation,
and the goal situation, or the predicted future situation, and later a proposed plan to achieve it, and with the symbolism used in the
destination photo boards used in t.r.a. - p.c.s., and also with the behind-ahead time line used in b.s.l.
We see that
D3 (actually a spatial dimension), represents time, as in the b.s.l. A?, B?, C? time line etc.
D2 represents a spatial dimension, left to right
D1 represents space also, here the spatial dimension of behind-forward.
Array 1 represents an array of places, e.g. rooms, e.g. pl3, at time t1,
Array 2 represents the same array of places, e.g. rooms, e.g. pl3, at time t2,
Array 3 represents the same array of places, e.g. rooms, e.g. pl3, at time t3
Dimension D2, as said, represents the spatial dimension left to right, w.r.t. the observer. It is a symbol which is relatively close in nature
to what is represented. The major difference is one of scale, so that e.g. an inch on the diagram might represent 25 feet in real space.
Dimension D1 is rather more involved. Like the above this is a spatial dimension, but now this vertical spatial dimension represents the spatial
dimension of forwards - backwards w.r.t. the observer. Again, like the above, there is a difference in scale, so that e.g. an inch on the
diagram might represent 25 feet in real space.
Dimension D3 is even more remote in its symbolism. Here the spatial dimension of forwards-backwards represents the dimension of time.
We really only want to consider times ranging from the distant past up to the immediate past. We will not consider the present, or the future here.
This is a record of past experience, (although from this predictions about the future might be made, in the device in d101) Consistency in our
symbolism is maintained because a picture of e.g. Johnny enjoying a blanket ride in the school gym, placed in d101, is a record of an actual event,
this really happened, on some occasion in the recent past, possibly in the memory of the child.
The arrays are more or less identical with the destination photo boards used in t.r.a./p.c.s.
For array 1, at time t1 we can put on the place pictures the cut out pictures of the activities usually occurring in those places at those times,
involving the relevant people. Similarly with array 1, at time t2 etc.
There is therefore a reference here, in the symbol store place, to the past experience of the individual. On the basis of this knowledge of
past history the child can make predictions. For example if the child has often found the school psychologist in his office in the school he
might predict he will find him there in the future, he can therefore start off his search for this person by going to that place. Initially the adult
can start the child off with a ready made history, and then the child can alter this according to his own experiences.
Places or stations between the store place and the place of use, the 'work area' for our symbols.
Are these organised in a similar way to the store place?
A problem with the symbolism?
The picture of the present known situation is viewed against its surroundings, the actual place it represents and the comparison, and understanding
of the fact that the one represents the other, is helped by this.
But in the case of the future situation the blank frame is displayed. This is fine as it indicates the unknown, a lack of knowledge, but it
too is seen against an actual real background situation, (the same situation as before, if the two frames are close together, if the 'future' frame
is not far in front of the 'present situation' picture, or frame. This is obviously not the desired comparison.
What we might do, to solve this problem, is to dramatically increase the distance between the 'future situation' picture frame and the picture of
the present situation. Then we might make make the actual surroundings of the 'future' frame unknown and indistinct. We might set this frame in a
darkened room or space adjacent to, ahead of, the lighted room the present situation picture is in. So we are aware of the frame we might have the
frame edges glowing, but everything else is dark, so the child will not know what is in the room, and what the room is like. In language we have
expressions relating to this,
"I'm in the dark about it",
"Can you throw any light on the matter?
and so on.
(To ease the child's task of understanding some symbolism, it is always better to initially involve a broader, larger action, a gross motor action
rather than a fine motor action. Later we can develop the G.M. into F.M. So we had the case of the child in one of the special schools in which I
worked who had a very poor understanding of, and ability in, simple arithmetical ideas and processes. So I used a rather grand staircase in the front
hall of the school, placed numerals on the steps in order, with higher numerals on higher steps, and got this child to actually walk up the staircase,
to see how, starting from, e.g. '2', placed on a lower step, then adding 3, (going up three steps), would result in her arriving at '5', so 2 + 3 = 5. Had this been successful we would then have used the more conventional fine motor, smaller number line, in the standard visuo-spatial-motor symbolism of arithmetic processes)
We might have a succession of these linked darkened rooms. As the child enters a darkened room he puts the room light on and sees the actual situation.
Then he must make a picture in the blank frame to represent the new now, the new present situation.
This may or may not be what he wanted, the desired situation, what his goal was, as he described it as a possible alternative, stored in e.g. SS2c,
e.g. him enjoying a sweet in the room.
What does the child put in SS2c? Let's say we only want him to express his desires. But even so we want him to express a sensible realistic desire,
not a silly phantastic one, a wish. We don't want him to ask for the moon, but for a bag of crisps, if he is in the kitchen or near to it. The plan
might not be specified, or only the most basic of plans, and only implicit, e.g. walk to the kitchen, or if in the kitchen, say, or 'say', using our
pictures here, what you want, to an adult present, and wait.
The child might want a bag of crisps, and so he puts two pictures into SS2c:-
1. a picture of him with a bag of crips and smiling
2. a picture of him without a bag of crisps and frowning
These pictures might be placed on a picture of the place the child is actually in at the present time, e.g. the kitchen. This implies that the child
is predicting that he might achieve his goal in the place he is already in - and that he does not need to move, out of the place, at any rate. (But he
might need to move bodily in the place and make fine motor - adaptive movements). He might indeed only have to wait, and his response of
signalling his desire, to an adult present, might be enough to get him the reward.
Or they might be placed on a picture of a different place, with the implication that he will have to go to that place to achieve his goal
We may initially only require the child to picture the positive alternative, and reward this by giving him the crisps. Later we will require him to
picture both alternatives.
Similarly these pictures ought, according to the system, be placed in SS2c, (or SS2d, or SS2e, or whatever)
but he might put them into the future situation picture frame, if this is close to the present situation picture frame. Later he must put them into
SS2c or whatever, and only be rewarded if he does so.
At first we keep space and time interwined in our symbolism, as it is in primitive human behaviour, to get across the idea of the symbolism.
Later we can separate the two dimensions, so we can have the situation of waiting, possibly getting the desired reward or goal, in the same place as
the previous present actual situation.
How is this to be done in our symbolism?
Mirrors
Just as in the representation of the actual present situation, the representation of the desired future situation, the goal, might involve mirrors.
On the negative, 'not'
If we look at a language such as English we would think that the idea of
'not x'
was more complex than the concept of
'x'
After all, there is one symbol in the latter case, and two, an extra symbol, in the former case.
And again, if we thought that by saying 'not x', e.g. not an apple, we were using a shorthand, an concept which explicitly subsumed many other classes,
not only ones such as 'a grape', a 'banana' etc, (other fruit), but also ones such as 'a Ferrari', 'a bank manager' etc. then there would be a
justification for this view.
But let us look at a behaviour in t.r.a., which expresses the idea of 'not want'.
It is lunch time at a special residential school for severely mentally handicapped children and young adults. I get the tomato sauce bottle, take the
top off, and hold it near Amanda's plate of food, in an action representing the question
"Do you want some of this sauce on your food?"
Her 'answer' is 'yes', and she pulls the hand holding the bottle towards her plate until is right over it. (The child could of course even physically
prompt the tilting over of the bottle, but I don't recall that she did this on the occasion I am talking about.)
Now take the case where the child does not want any of that sauce on her food. She will push the adult's hand holding the sauce bottle away
from her plate.
It doesn't really matter precisely where the bottle is pushed to, it's not a case of moving to somewhere positive. The important aspect,
the one focussed on, is the movement away from a place or object, here Amanda's dinner plate.
To move an object Obj 2 to another object, or objects, or situation, "work area", means use it in the way that that object can, usually is,
used, especially used with those other objects.
Contrariwise, to move an object Obj 2, away from another object, or objects or situation, "work area", means do not use it in the way
that that object can be used, usually is used, especially with those other objects.
The focus is on the "work area", where the object is moved away from. Here Amanda's interest is just on her dinner plate, or rather the food on it,
not where the sauce bottle goes to, if she doesn't want any sauce and pushes the bottle away.
So I suppose here is a quite concrete basis for the idea of the negative, 'no', or 'not'.
If we look at this behaviour it would seem that using a common language such as English to decide on characteristics of behaviour, e.g. which of two
behaviours is more complex, and which simpler, is a mistake. In t.r.a. the negative appears to be no more complex than the positive.
Now consider two higher level situations or behaviours, on much higher level
Take the case of a child doing a concept sorting test with actual objects. Given a pile of mixed objects he might select from these to make a smaller
group of objects, which have something in common, which form a concept, perhaps a functional concept, by placing the objects close together. In this
highish level behaviour he is symbolising likeness, having something in common, being members of a class, by spatial closeness
So he might place objects connected with smoking together, e.g. a box of matches, a lighter, a pack of cigarettes, a pipe, a pouch of tobacco etc.
Or, at an even higher level, he might do a similar thing, but with symbols of the objects, (or of situations, or events etc.) e.g. photos.
Now in both of the above two higher level cases we might observe a similar situation to that with the simpler case of expressing a desire, in t.r.a.,
That is the child takes a possible member of the class he is forming and holds it near the group. He can either move it into or onto the group and
release the object, or symbol, or move it away from the group and release it outside the implicit boundary. As in the t.r.a. case above, the two cases
do not appear to differ, in their degree of complexity.
The case of an external, here inanimate object, e.g. a sauce bottle, being moved to, or away from, a place, e.g. Amanda's dinner plate, is directly
comparable with the case of a child moving bodily from place Pl7 to place Pl3. It will result if he wants to be at place Pl3, or if he does not want
to be at place pl7. One is a fine motor - adaptive example, the other a gross motor example.
Now the question arises does the child want to be at place pl3, and not want to be at place pl7, or should we describe the
situation as the child wanting to be at place pl3 more than he wants to be at place pl7?
This latter description seems much more accurate, a person's behaviour would seem to be always motivated in terms of relative, not
absolute values.
For example, in gross motor action, a person moves from place pl4 to pl8. It's not very accurate to say he does not want to be at place pl4 and wants
to be at place pl8, its better to say he wants to be at place pl8 more than he wants to be at place pl4, that he would rather be, or prefer to
be, at place pl8, than pl4.
In fine motor adaptive action a person would rather have an object obj6 at place pl3, than at place pl8.
In choosing a person to seek the company of, the child does not simply go to a person he likes, and away from a person he doesn't, but seeks out, from
the people present, the person he likes best.
Note that this comparison, e.g. between places, depending on the result, might lead to action, or might not. In the gross motor case above, if a
person is at place pl4, and would much rather be at place pl8, a response, movement, gross motor action is likely, there is a strong motivation. But if he is at place pl8, and he would prefer to be there more than any other place, no gross motor action will be expected.
In the fine motor - adaptive case, if a person has an object at place pl4, and he would rather it were at place pl5, he will be expected to move it,
while if he is happy with its position, no adaptive response relating to the objects position will be expected.
Consider again the simple system of
x
and
not x
For example
happy
and
not happy
Now we know what happy refers to, but what does not happy really refer to? On a strict and literal interpretation if refers to
anything which is 'not happy'
In this enormous class we can put, as well as sad, bewildered, angry, depressed etc. a vast array of other concepts, such as the step pyramid at
Saqara, my first car, Sherlock Holmes' violin, the first blow of the hammer on the skull of the old moneylender whom Raskolnikov murders, the
extranumerary nipple on Scaramanga's chest etc etc etc etc
Now this 'not happy' in our happy - not happy opposition is not what we want.
And neither is the concept 'not getting a sweet' in some circumstance involving Amanda, which we want to link with Amanda being 'happy' or'not happy'.
On this wide literal reading, Amanda 'not getting a sweet' would include Amanda getting a large bag of crisps. We can't say that this would make her unhappy, and indicate this with an image of her frowning face, in the picture of her holding the bag of crisps!
We want to restrict one group or class to emotional states.
Within this subgroup we initially adopt a rough division into two sub-sub-classes
happy, and not happy,
or perhaps better expressed
happy --- unhappy
If we recall our discussions of levels of measurement this is a dichotomous attribute, a dimension measured at a crude nominal level of measurement.
Similarly for the dimension concerning whether A gets her sweets or not, we have another dichotomous attribute
Then we are interested in the relationship between these two attributes or dimensions.
This will be measured at the relatively simple level of correlation, perhaps a sort of phi coefficient.
Diagram d-103
The marks in the cells represent occasions, of situations or events, involving Amanda, described in terms of the having of sweets or not, and whether
she is happy or not.
This then is a treatment of the data from a large number of occasions or events, (the total number of marks). Note that here the correlation is
perfect, (1.00), but of course it might be less than this, especially if other factors, other variables, are not controlled, not held constant.
The child's prediction of what will happen, her expectation, her readiness for something which might happen in the future has a probabilistic
nature. This is based on a record of what has happened in the past, from past experience. This collection of data on what happened in the past is a
sort of statistics, and from it we get ratios such as proportions. For example in the past the number of cases in which Amanda got a sweet and was
happy, added to the number of cases in which Amanda did not get a sweet and was not happy, as a proportion of the total number of cases, is 1/1, or
100%. Therefore the probability of one of these two cases occurring in the future, is 1.00, i.e. a certainty.
We must be careful with our symbolism and very aware of what we are doing
One mark in a cell is actually an individual event which actually happened at some time in the past.
According to our principles we should represent this by a picture, more or less schematic, possibly a photo of this actual individual event,
occurring at a particular time
Now we are contemplating representing a whole group or class of events, e.g. a large number of occasions when
Amanda got a sweet, and she was happy
by a single picture, which at the moment, is identical to the picture which represents a specific, individual occasion.
Obviously this must not be done, and we have to mark the picture representing a whole class of similar occasions, differently from the one
representing a specific occasion, just one member of that general class. (Just as we have to distinguish 'cat' from 'this black cat', and so on)
The natural solution to this would seem to be that, in moving from the specific case of an individual event, (or object, or situation), to the idea
of a general class of these entities, we might
move from
the use of one photo representing a single event, (or object or situation),
to
a group of photos representing a group or class of events, (or objects or situations), so remaining within p.c.s.,
or
a single schematic symbol representing the class of events, (or objects or situations), so taking us into s.c.s.
Most likely we will be aiming for the s.c.s. option, because the p.c.s. would be very cumbersome Actually we should probably lead into the s.c.s.
version, via the p.c.s. option.
We might also mark the picture of a single, specific individual event, by inserting a time marker into the picture, to show that the specific
individual event E4 occurred at time t5, while the specific individual event E7 occurred at time t12, etc. To do this we might insert a picture of a
clock into the picture, dispaying a particular time
Possibly later, the attributes might be measured at higher levels of measurement,
(a) with more divisions, still at the nominal level
(b) at the ordinal level
(c) at the interval level
At (b), perhaps a very important level for our scheme, the child is behaving in relative terms, e.g.
Amanda likes a ride on a blanket in the gym, but she likes a bag of crisps more, (as shown, for example by a smile in the first case and a smile in
the second, but the smile with the crisps is broader.
Initially this association between getting a sweet and being happy, or not getting a sweet and being unhappy, will not be a conscious,
verbalised, or rather symbolised, idea of the association, but one which is simply present in the child's behaviour, (similar to the way one regards
the results of something like Osgood's Semantic Differential or Kelly's Repertory Grid.)
Then the association might be represented by the child, e.g. in visuo-motor, symbolic-pictorial form.
The fact of an association between two situations or events must first exist in reality, in R, i.e. at the n.r.a. level.
This might be an association, e.g. causal, between 2 'external' events e.g. :-
(a) I press down a switch on the wall and the room light goes on
or between an 'external' and an 'internal' event or process, e.g.:-
(b) I see a nice plate of food and I feel hungry
or between two internal processes, e.g. :-
(c) I have a positive attitude to left wing politics and a negative attitude to fox hunting
The association might be between entities at varying levels of complexity, and the association might be measured at varying levels of
complexity. For the latter, we might have:-
1. nominal-nominal
2. ordinal-ordinal
3. interval-interval
etc.
(More detailed discussion of these models, levels of measurement, (Stevens), and correlation, will be found
applied to the specific case of numerosity, and economic value, in
An Arithmetic Program
and
Elementary Economic Behaviour
on this site)
How does a person signal an association, e.g. a causal connection, between two events?
We must discuss this at varying levels, e.g. at the t.r.a. level, at the symbol use level, etc.
Take a simple case of classical conditioning. A buzzer sounds, and a dog 'prepares' for food, at an unconscious level, e.g. he salivates.
(Is it still classical conditioning if the response is not an autonomic one, but a striped, skeletal muscle response?)
Say a person is aware of stimulus St5. In t.r.a. he can signal the existence of this stimulus, and his awareness of the stimulus, by exaggerating his
overt, motor looking response,and exaggerating his looking response at the other person present.
Say, from past experience, he expects stimulus St9 to follow. How does he signal this, in t.r.a.?
He can signal his preparatory response, his preparing for St9.
Say a person presses a switch in one place, pl6, and is usually rewarded by seeing something gratifying happen, in a place pl4, perhaps relatively
far from where the switch is. He can show his anticipation by bodily going to pl4, if it's a long way from pl6, or perhaps by simply turning his head,
or eyes towards pl4, if it's closer to him, and visible from pl6.
Here he prepares for the occurrence of an event by going to the place, or turning his head or eyes towards, the place where the event occurs or where
the event can be seen best. This initial preparatory response puts him in a position to register the occurrence of the anticipated event, to know
that it has occurred. Then further preparatory, (or external stimulus produced), responses might be made. For example if the event is the return of
his card after an a.t.m. transaction his next preparatory response might be to extend his hand in anticipation of his card coming out of the slot.
When he perceives the expected or anticipated response he might show this with a look of satisfaction, especially, of course, if the event is a
desired one.
These preparatory responses might be exaggerated as signals to another person present.
Then again, the event of the non-occurrence of an expected event might be signalled. The person goes to place pl4, and not see what he
expected. In n.r.a. he might feel and look surprised, and in t.r.a. he might be conscious of this and adopt the appropriate expression as a deliberate
conscious means of conveying the situation. (To be accurate, to adopt the terms of Mowrer's 2-factor theory, if he does not experience an
expected desired event he will feel disapointed expectation, if he does not experience a feared anticipated event, he will
experience relief.
We can, course, help the child to develop this communication skill by the use of mirrors, here is another reason to adopt the practise of
placing these stategically about the childs environment.
Here is an appropriate place to discuss the ideas of Darwin, as discussed, I believe, in his "The Expression of the Emotions in Animals and Man". His
hypothesised adaptive evolutionary signicance of various emotions and emotional expressions makes good sense, and makes sense of the expressions. For
example in surprise, an expectation is not fulfilled, and so whatever cognitive model of reality the person concerned had, which generated the
expectation, needs revision. To do this the person needs to 'take in' information and stimuli from the outside world, and so in turn he needs to put
his sensory organs into a maximally receptive state or condition. In the case of posssibly the most important sense modality, that of sight,
he needs to open his eyes (wide). This is an important aspect of the facial component of the emotional expression of surprise.
It appears that another opening movement is performed in this emotion, the mouth is often opened wide too!
In p.c.s., in our set up as described above we discussed our prediction for the future, our expectation, or preparedness, for two events to
occur together, or consecutively.
So, if we believe that
event E3 causes, or is followed by, or is associated with, event E5, we just put, in SS2c
a picture of event E3, and a picture of event E5, together in the same 'time' or 'place' picture or in consecutive time or place pictures.
We exclude the case of a picture of event E3 without a picture of event E5
This symbolism is discussed above in the specific case of Pe3 wanting event E7, which we translate as
either
Pe3 is happy, (shown by a smile) and she has a sweet,
or
Pe3 is unhappy, and she is without a sweet,
but not
Pe3 is happy and she does not have a sweet
or
Pe3 is unhappy and she does have a sweet,
all other things being equal
This specific case is one where
one factor is an external event, (of Pe3 having a sweet or not)
and
one factor is an internal one, (whether Pe3 is happy or not)
We talked above of a process leading from the store place, symbol store place, to the place of use of the object,
possibly symbol object, the 'work area'.
This process involves collecting the required objects, e.g. symbols from the store place etc.
The intermediate stages were described as forming meaningful statments, then possible ones, then probable ones and
then true ones.
Another consideration here is we might have a concrete framework in which to put symbols from the symbol store
to make a statement. This framework might be an aid to the child in forming a statment which is meaningful, etc etc.
Take the case of a verbal, linear, "one dimensional" language, spoken or written, such as English, German, etc.
We might a framework using grammatical categories so:-
(noun, subject) (verb) (noun, direct object) (noun, indirect object)
e.g.
[ Jack ] [gave] the [ bone ] to the [ dog ]
This might imply that there was a grammatical organisation to the symbols in the store place
But what of our visual spatial graphic symbols?
What are the rules of combination of symbols in this case?
The rules of combining individual symbols of objects to form spatial complexes, situations
will be those of making a representational painting
i.e.
if object obj3 is further away from the viewer than object obj6, then the image
of object obj3 will be above the image of obj6.
if object obj3 is to the right of object obj6, as seen by the viewer, then the image
of object obj3 will be to the right of the image of obj6.
if object obj3 is to the left of object obj6, as seen by the viewer, then the image
of object obj3 will be to the left of the image of obj6.
(The distance between the images might be to some sort of scale with the distances between the actual objects,
e.g. one inch = 100 feet)
The rules of combining situation pictures and event or activity pictures will be parallel to the
forward - backward time line used in most or all sign languages.
if event e3, or situation S3 is in the present, the picture of the event or situation will be on the same
left - right line that goes through the person's body
if event e3, or situation S3, is in the past, the picture of the event or situation will be behind the
person
if event e3, or situation S3, is in the future, the picture of the event or situation will be ahead of the
person
if event e7, or situation S7, is later than event e3, or situation3, and the events, or situations are in the
future, then the picture of event e7, or situation S7, will be further from the viewer, in the ahead
direction, than is the picture of event e3, or situation S3.
if event e7, or situation S7, is later than event e3, or situation3, and the events, or situations are in the
past, then the picture of event e7, or situation S7, will be closer to the viewer, in the behind
direction, than is the picture of event e3, or situation S3.
These rules and conventions are discussed elsewhere in the section on t.r.a. - p.c.s,
pure p.c.s. etc
They might be embodied in a physical structure which can form an aid for the child
GENERAL CURRICULUM FOR THE SUBNORMAL PUPIL
ASSESSMENT
(A suitable form should be used for recording the results, from observation, and interview with the parents.
Perhaps in addition a form of coding might be used, for convenience, e.g. something derived from the Stokoe
system, for sign)
N.R.A.
(i) Can the child identify or decide on a goal object ? (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(ii) Can the child identify any possible obstacles, problems, his 'diagnosis' properly?
(iii) Can the child form a sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities, if the
plan will not work at that present time?
(iv) Can the child collect any appropriate means objects needed for the plan?*
(v) Can the child bring them to work area?*
(vi) Can the child assemble, use means objects?*
(vii) Can the child check to see if goal is achieved?
(viii) Can the child put objects away or throw objects away appropriately?*
Notes
Definition of n.r.a. :- Any object, or natural action, inanimate and animate, which is not a symbol, or is not symbolised. It excludes the deliberate
and conscious communications, (receptive and expressive), of humans and some infra human animals. It includes non-conscious, non-deliberate
communication as seen in lower animals, for example the red mark on the mother bird's beak to signal to the chick to peck and get regurgitated food
from the mother's stomach, here the mother is not an expressive communicator, in our t.r.a. definition, and the chick is not a receptive communicator,
again in our t.r.a. definition.
* By appropriately we mean the child should follow this sequence
Has this object a use?***
Yes: keep it
No: throw it away
Is it to be used now? Does it have a use relevant to the current plan to reach the current goal?
Yes, use it
No:don't use it.
Is it ready to be put away?
Yes: Put it away
No: make it ready and then put it away**
** it is to be put away in the store place appropriate to its future intended use. This should be a place as near as possible to the objects place of
use, its 'work area', and which has conditions which keep the object in good condition . Examples are a fridge for foods, a dry place for tools etc.
'Making ready' involves operations which keep the object in good condition for its next use, which preserve its form and function. Examples are
cleaning a saw and lightly oiling it, washing and drying cutlery and crockery before they are put away in kitchen drawers and cupboards, washing
clothes before they are put away in clothes cupboards and wardrobes, etc.
***the use to which an object might be put may or may not be the use it originally had. An example of the first case is an object which can be used
again and again, such as a knife, a fork, a plate, a cup etc., (not a generally disposable item such as a paper cup, plate etc). After washing and
drying these they should be put away in a kitchen drawer or cupboard. An example of the second case is an emptied pickle jar which can be kept, washed
and dried and used to contain turps to wash paint brushes in). In this case the store place changes to that appropriate to the new use, e.g. whatever
room or place one uses as an art studio.
T.R.A.
(i) (E) Can the child signal his identification or decision on a goal object ? (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(R) Can the child recognise another person's selection of a goal object?
(ii) (E) Can the child signal his identification of any possible obstacles, problems, his 'diagnosis' properly?
(iii) (E) Can the child signal his sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities,
if the plan will not work at that present time?
(iv) (E) Can the child signal his collecting of any appropriate means objects needed for the plan?
Can the child present objects, to be used in his plan, to an adult either to get permission for him to use or for the adult to use?
(v) (E) Can the child signal his bringing them to work area?
(vi) (E) Can the child signal his assembling and use of means objects?
(vii) (E) Can the child signal his checking to see if goal is achieved?
(viii) (E) Can the child signal his putting away objects away and throwing away objects appropriately?
does child understand this action as implying that the task is completed, or at least finished?
(R) Can the child understand another person's putting away objects away and throwing away objects appropriately?
does child understand this action as implying that the other person sees the task as completed, or at least finished?
Can the child use physical action on person's body (and to what level and extent)?
(push or pull ---->O------->R)
here a reduction of force may be involved
C the child use real objects for deliberate communication (and to what level and extent)?
( S [present real object] --->O --->R)
the objects might be presented to the other person's eyes, and there might be a degree of exaggeration
Notes
(a) 'E' refers to expressive communication, 'R' to receptive communication.
(b) Definition of t.r.a. : -
This refers to primitive communications, both receptive and expressive, which are deliberate and conscious.
An example of receptive t.r.a. is the adult's perception, (visual,kinaesthetic etc), of a child pushing and pulling her, of the physical manipulations
of her, and 'the meaning of these, ("Oh he wants to go to the toilet, etc) An example of expressive t.r.a. is the child's pushing and pulling of an
adult, using a TOKEN degree of force, token physical manipulation. So this is NOT treating the adult as though he were a mere physical object. (In
fact this is incorrectly stated, it should read 'not a mere simple physical object', since of course we are all physical objects.)
It EXCLUDES non-conscious, non-deliberate communication as seen in lower animals, for example the red mark on the mother bird's beak to signal to
the chick to peck and get regurgitated food from the mother's stomach, here the mother is not an expressive communicator, in our t.r.a. definition,
and the chick is not a receptive communicator, again in our t.r.a. definition.
Note that there is very little symbolism in t.r.a., if the child grasps the adult's hand and tries to 'throw' it towards an object he desires, perhaps
out of his reach, he is referring to the hand he is grasping, not someone elses. (While in demo-imitation there is more, e.g. the examiner might, in
the DDST 'kick a ball item', gesture kicking the ball on the ground with his foot, but he intends that the child understand he should kick the ball
himself, with HIS OWN foot)
t.r.a. can, we maintain, include IMPERATIVE and INDICATIVE aspects or moods.
If the latter is true, then we should have
representations of the external world,
and we should perhaps therefore also have,
equivalents of the following features in p.c.s., sign etc :-
statements, statements or representations which are inaccurate, or untrue,
and if a person makes these representations deliberately and knowingly and intentionally, we should have,
the equivalent of LYING.
This can be argued for.
We perceive the world, and register the effects of stimuli from without and within and build up a picture of reality.
A person who is demonstrating something to another, a fact, is usually trying to convey the real situation, get the other person to perceive the
reality; e.g. you can show a child that a plastic shopping bag is empty, has no goodies in it, by opening it and showing the inside to the child,
or by upending it and showing that nothing falls out of it.
But these perceptions, and this picture are not the actual reality, and may not correspond to it.
In certain normal, and certain pathological, conditions a person perceives, or imagines, something which is not the case in reality.
So, in optical illusions this happens, to normal people, e.g. in the Müller-Lyer illusion, the observer believes that the two lines are not
parallel, whereas in fact they are.
In some pathological conditions, e.g. some mental illnesses, the patient might suffer from hallucinations, of hearing, or sight etc.
The stage magician who deceives or misdirects a member of his audience is doing the equivalent of lying. He is making the other person think or
believe or even perceive something which is not the case, which does not correspond to reality. For example the magician might put his hand,
holding an object, into the famous hat, withdraw his hand and show it as empty, but in fact the object is concealed in his hand. Then he might
tip the hat upside down, and demonstrate that it is empty, since nothing falls out. The claim is then that the object has mysteriously disappeared,
perhaps by the magician's magic powers.
In t.r.a. ------
---the objects involved in the communicatioon only refer to those specific objects,
---the place of the action only refers to tthat particular place, i.e. HERE,
---the time of the action only refers to thhat particular time, i.e. NOW.
---the goal is not directly, and immmediately, represented, only mediately, at the end of a behavioural sequence.
This latter is a way, a method of achieving the goal.
So the goal is inextricably linked with a particular method of achieving the goal
We should note that there are two or three varieties of t.r.a. See below.
DEMO-IMITATION
Can the child use demo-imitation I (and at what level and extent)?
Can the child use demo-imitation II (and at what level and extent)?
In demo-imitation type I the object involved in the message, e.g. the demonstrator's body part, refers NOT to this specific object, but to the
corresponding part of another person, the intended imitator; other objects in the action may only represent themselves, and the spatial and temporal
references are still to the 'HERE' and 'NOW'.
Here person Pe1, (the demonstrator, the expressive communicator), uses part of HIS body to represent the corresponding part of person Pe2's body,
(the imitator, the receptive communicator).
For example in presenting the gross motor item 'can kick a ball', in the DDST the examiner makes a kick towards a ball placed on the floor, his leg
and foot is a symbol for the child's leg and foot, and his kicking action is a symbol for the child's kicking action, but the ball only represents
itself, (so I suppose this is really a compound or hybrid form)
(In a variant, type Ia, person Pe1, uses, or recognises, one object, e.g. a part of his body, as a symbol of a DIFFERENT part of his or another
person's body. The association might be based on a close, or a much looser point of similarity, e.g. the nose as a penis, a vase as a vagina)
So we have the example of an s.l.d. child requesting a repetition of a pat by E on her back, by her patting of her thigh. Here her hand stands for
the psychologist's hand, as in demo-imitation I, but one part of her body, her thigh, perhaps stands for another part of her body, her back,
(demo-imitation Ia; so here is another compound or hybrid.
In demo-imitation type II, more complexly, it is a PLACE which represents another place, (e.g. Debbie S.) pulls down her pants and knickers in the
classroom to indicate she wants to go to the toilet, i.e. that she wants to be in the toilet, and then do this action, and then urinate or defecate,
in the toilet bowl).
Here some of the final responses leading to the goal are detached from the situation which normally evokes them. In Debbie's case the pants dropping,
normally occurring in the toilet, and ocurring just before sitting on the toilet bowl and urinating or defecating in it occur in some other place e.g.
the classroom, as a deliberate communicative act.
In demo-imitation type III, still more complexly, one TIME, especially the present, represents another time, especially the future
DEMO-IMITATION TYPE I
( E and R )
(i)
(E) Can the child signal his identification or decision on a goal object ? (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(R) Can the child recognise another person's selection of a goal object?
(ii)
(E) Can the child signal his identification of any possible obstacles, problems, his 'diagnosis' properly?
(iii)
(E) Can the child signal his sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities, if the plan will not work at that present time?
(iv)
(E) Can the child signal his collecting of any appropriate means objects needed for the plan?
Can the child present objects, to be used in his plan, to an adult either to get permission for him to use or for the adult to use?
(v)
(E) Can the child signal his bringing them to work area?
(vi)
(E) Can the child signal his assembling and use of means objects?
(vii)
(E) Can the child signal his checking to see if goal is achieved?
(viii)
(E) Can the child signal his putting objects away or throwing objects away appropriately?
does child understand this action as implying that the task is completed, or at least finished?
(R) Can the child understand another person's putting objects away/throwing objects away appropriately?
does child understand this action as implying that the other person sees the task as completed, or at least finished?
Note that we have linked demonstration to imitation but this is one kind of response to the stimulus of the demonstration.
SYMBOL USE - P.C.S. and S.C.S.
Can child use pictures? ( S [pictures] --->O ----> R)
These will initially be photos, as more concrete
and so easier, later they might be more schematic
symbols, representing more abstract
and general classes)
(i)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his identification or decision on a goal object ? (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(R) Can the child recognise another person's picture use to represent his goal object?
(ii)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his identification of any possible obstacles, problems, his 'diagnosis' properly?
(iii)
(E) Can the child uses pictures to represent his sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities, if the plan will not work at that present time?
(iv)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his collecting of any appropriate means objects needed for the plan?
Can the child present pictures, representing objects to be used in his plan, to an adult either to get permission for him to use the objects or for the adult to use?
(v)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his bringing objects to a work area?
(vi)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his assembling and use of means objects?
(vii)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his checking to see if goal is achieved?
(viii)
(E) Can the child use pictures to represent his putting away objects or throwing away objects appropriately?
does child understand this pictured action as implying that the task is completed, or at least finished?
(R) Can the child understand another person's use of pictures to represent putting away objects or throwing away objects away appropriately?
does child understand this pictured action as implying that the other person sees the task as completed, or at least finished?
SIGN
Can child sign, (and to what level, and extent)?
(i)
(E) Can the child sign his identification or decision on a goal object ? (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(R) Can the child recognise another person's sign of his goal object?
(ii)
(E) Can the child sign his identification of any possible obstacles, problems, his 'diagnosis' properly?
(iii)
(E) Can the child sign his sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities, if the plan will not work at that present time?
(iv)
(E) Can the child sign his collecting of any appropriate means objects needed for the plan?
Can the child present objects, to be used in his plan, to an adult either to get permission for him to use or for the adult to use?
(v)
(E) Can the child sign his bringing them to work area?
(vi)
(E) Can the child sign his assembling and use of means objects?
(vii)
(E) Can the child sign his checking to see if goal is achieved?
(viii)
(E) Can the child sign his putting objects away or throwing objects away appropriately?
does child understand this sign or action as implying that the task is completed, or at least finished?
(R) Can the child understand another person's signing of putting objects away or throwing objects away appropriately?
does child understand this signing or action as implying that the other person sees the task as completed, or at least finished?
TEACHING and TRAINING
(parallel to the above)
n.r.a.
(i)
teach child to identify or decide on a goal object. (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(ii)
teach child to identify any possible obstacles, problems, to 'diagnose' these properly.
(iii)
teach child to form a sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities, if the plan will not work at that present time.
(iv)
teach child to collect any appropriate means objects needed for the plan.
(v)
teach child to bring them to (appropriate) work area.
(vi)
teach child to assemble, use means objects.
(vii)
teach child to check to see if goal is achieved.
(viii)
teach child to put away objects away or throw away objects appropriately.
t.r.a.
(i) teach child to signal his identification or decision on a goal object. (This depends on his needs and what is available)
(ii) teach child to signal his identification of any possible obstacles, problems, his 'diagnosis' properly.
(iii) teach child to signal his sensible plan to overcome these obstacles, and relate these to future favourable conditions, or opportunities, if the plan will not work at that present time.
(iv) teach child to signal his collecting of any appropriate means objects needed for the plan.
(v) teach child to signal his bringing them to work area.
(vi) teach child to signal his assembling and use of means objects.
(vii) teach child to signal his checking to see if goal is achieved.
(viii) teach child to signal his putting away objects or throwing away objects appropriately.
etc.
General.
The first task is to decide what we wish to teach the child. This will depend upon the child's interests and his abilities. They form goals for the teacher.
Logic plays a large part here, for example in breaking down complex teaching goals into their components. This is a task which is not very easy for the
typical intellectual equipment of psychologists, (and even less of speech therapists). For example if a behaviour is a complex of a, b, and c, done simultaneously, or sequentially, then logically we might start by teaching a, then b, then c, or similarly.
Note that if we have a spatial scheme representing the relationship between various behavioural teaching goals, this should tell us how similar two tasks are, by looking at the spatial distance between them. If two tasks are similar, teaching one might help in teaching the other.
We are concerned with deciding on what to teach the child. As far as the initial logical phase goes, we are only interested in HOW to teach in so far as this is a matter of WHAT to teach, based on the principle that
if teaching target behaviour a is a component of teaching target behaviour A, then we must teach a before A.
(Only secondarily are we concened with the second phase, where we invoke actual psychological principles in our teaching of these targets)
One of the first things to do is assess the child, what his goals are, and what is his ability to achieve these,
independently, (n.r.a.)
or to communicate them to another person from whom he may want to ask for help, at these levels
t.r.a.
goal object communication:
e.g.
child looks to see if other person is seeing that he is looking at something, and so concludes he is seeing the thing,
child may exaggerate his looking movement to make sure this communication is effected
child deliberately and consciously adopts a 'social' smile, or a 'social' frown, the n.r.a. emotional smile, or frown.
It has a conscious aspect added, to make t.r.a.
again the child checks to see if the adult notices this, and assumes he makes the deduction that the smiled at object is a
desired, positive object or an undesired, negative object
means object communication
Similar to above
the objects are collected from their store places, and brought together into/onto the work space/area, to be used
the objects are used in various manipulations, methods and processes, take part in various events
the objects are put away in the store places, if they can be used again, if not they are thrown away
demo-imitation
photo use
symbol use
mime
sign
etc
The initial assessment gives us the starting point for teaching, we go onto the teaching or training phase
This is a simple process and we will follow the idea of the plan, in organising our assessment, and our teaching
So we determine what the child's goals are, by observing what he is interested in, what he looks at lingeringly, and what his attitude to it is, by observing what his facial expression is when he looks at, especially, is it positive, a smile, or negative, a frown.
So, we want to mark the child's behaviour, at these levels
So, for example, he may look at a banana, and smile, or at a spider, and frown. In the former case the tendency is to approach the object, in the latter to move away from it, either bodily, (gross motor, locomotor movement), or manually, (fine motor-adaptive), simply moving the hand or arm.
Say the object is a packet of crisps. The child looks at the object, and if it's a desired object, he approaches it.
This response is-----
(See one of the stories of Sherlock Holmes in this regard)
In order to move the child on to a higher form of communication, from a 'lower' one to a 'higher' one, among other things we must make the lower method impossible, or at least very difficult. So for example we will put the bag of crisps on a high shelf, out of the child's reach, and with no chair nearby to stand on, to move him from n.r.a., independent action, to t.r.a.
Take this example
Situation: A desired object is down a sort of well. The child's arm is not long enough to get his hand adjacent to the object, so that his hand can grasp the object and pull it out of the well.
A solution: Effectively extend the length of the child's arm, and substitute for the ability or function of the hand to grasp the object, by the child holding a stick long enough for one end to contact the object, and have something sticky on the end of the stick, such as a blob of chewing gum, or putty, or 'bluetack', which will 'grasp' the object.
In n.r.a. the communication is purely one way, at least on the conscious level. It is the same type as when Sherlock does his thing, or when an intelligent human adult tries to read the meaning of the behaviour of an animal or child.
We might ask
Qu. What is the child looking at?
A. object o3
Qu. Is he smiling, frowning or neutral?
A. smiling
Interpretation: The object might be an ultimate goal object, to be used in an ultimate consummatory goal activity where a need is satisfied. Or it might be a means object, which might be involved in a plan to achieve the ultimate goal object, activity etc.
Qu. What is the child looking at?
A. object o7
Qu. Is he smiling, frowning or neutral?
A. frowning
Interpretation: The object might be an negative goal object, to be avoided, or an obstacle to, problem in, the achievement of the ultimate goal object, to be used in an ultimate consummatory goal activity where a need is satisfied.
There is surely a significant difference between these two cases, and it must be reflected in the individual's response to the situation.
We will expect a person to withdraw from a negative goal object, e.g. like a spider - the person is afraid of this, but a person must NOT withdraw from a problem, he must approach or confront it - ("I see it as a challenge" and similar shit). In fact this makes the approprate emotional response to an obstacle or problem one of ANGER, in effect, which motivates the behaviour of approaching the obstacle, and trying to overcome it. In the crudest case, with more emotion than intellect, (in most cases of a simpleton's life, and occasionally in a sensible persons life, if they lose their temper and descend to a lower level of functioning), the person may actually attack and try to physically destroy the obstacle. So for example we have the s.l.d. child striking her head or ear if she has a headache or earache. The general expression for all this is expressed as the 'frustration - aggression' hypothesis.
So the difference here is one of the two emotions, fear, and anger. The autonomic and endocrine basis is similar but with differences.
Notes
(i) The (positive) goal object might be simple, and inanimate, e.g. a bag of crisps, the corresponding goal activity would be eating the crisps. The (positive) goal object might be complex, and animate, e.g. a person, e.g. John R., for Amanda A, and the goal activity just to be with him, or to go for a walk with him. A negative goal object might similarly be simple or complex, a simple(ish) one might be a large spider, for an arachnaphobe, or more complexly, a disliked person.
In stages higher than n.r.a., e.g. t.r.a. etc. the goal of the child has to be communicated to the person, (in t.r.a., either by 'pushing and pulling', or by presenting objects to him, especially to the visual channel), in later stage by pictures or signs.
In assessment one will simply observe the child and note what he notices, e.g. looks at, and what his attitude to the perceived thing is, as indicated by e.g. his facial expression, and what his consequent behaviour is. So with a positive (goal) object the child might look intently and lingeringly, smile and approach the object, with a negative goal object the child might look intently and lingeringly, frown and withdraw from the object.
(Note here, as in much of this treatment, that the process is blindingly simple and obvious, we do not need any pretentious and bogus attempts at 'pure' science)
In teaching or training, e.g. in t.r.a., we simply get the child to consciously and deliberately signal the above state of affairs, by perhaps exaggerating his motor looking response, and adopting a social, conscious, and deliberate smile. (NOW some psychology 'science' can be used)
(ii) The problem might be simple, and physical, or it might reside in a person, e.g. who does not wish to help the child achieve a goal, or even who actively tries to prevent the child achieving the goal.
(iii)
(iv) The means objects might be simple and inanimate, e.g. a stick a chimpanzee can use to pull a titbit outside his cage near to the bars of the cage so he can reach it. Or the means object might be complex and animate, e.g. a person, an adult, which the child tries to use to help him get what he wants, e.g. to get down a packet of crisps up on a high shelf out of reach of the child. In both these cases the solution might be quite simple and physical.
In any case the possible functions and uses of the object determine if it can be used in the child's plan to overcome an obstacle. e.g. the stick has to be of a certain length, the adult of a certain height. Since the human is more complex, more might be needed to be done to secure his services than with using a stick.
A simple way to use the person is by physically manipulating his body, pushing and pulling him etc. So he might be physically bodily moved, (gross motor, locomotor action) from one place to another, the place where he must be 'used'. Note that even in this 'simple' process it is almost certainly incorrect and foolish to regard the mechanism as one wherein the child 'uses the human as an object'. Aside from the sloppy thinking or expression involved in using the word 'object' to refer to inanimate things, and not animate ones, (a human is an object, so is a cat, and so is a stick, but they do differ in their degree of complexity), it is evident that in many cases the degree of force used in the manipulation would not be adequate to move the person if he WERE inanimate, some element of tokenism is present in the action, and the person responds consciously to, e.g. accepts, or rejects the child's imperative.
More complexly and sophisticatedly, the child communicates his request via the presentation of a stimulus to the person, e.g. an object, or a picture or a sign to his sight.
A particular person might have to be found, a well disposed friend, e.g. John, in the case of Amanda. And/or the person might need to be put into a friendly and helpful mood, e.g. with a smile, or bribing/paying the adult in other ways, e.g. doing them a favour, or paying them money etc. This really means that the person has the capacity to help the child, but there is also a problem in the person, in that he may not wish to help the child.
Compounds and hybrids
Compounds and hybrids are possible. For example in t.r.a.- p.c.s. the child might pull an adult to a photo board by a door and point to a photo of a toilet to indicate that she has a need for that object
Imperative vs indicative
The message of the child to the adult, or of the adult to a child, in any of the above communication types, i.e. t.r.a., etc might be imperative or indicative.
So for example the adult might present a ball to the field of vision of a child, (or to any of his sensory organs). Now the literal message here is simply
HERE IS A BALL.
an indicative statement
There may be an implicit or suggested further meaning e.g. use it, e.g.
THROW IT !
KICK IT !
etc
These are imperatives
By presenting another object, and maybe further, by putting them together, the meaning might be further defined
To put the ball into the other persons hand could then be interpreted as "use this object in the way it is usually used with a person's hand",
e.g.
GRASP IT !
THROW IT !
ROLL IT ALONG THE FLOOR !
PUT IT ON THE FLOOR BY YOUR FOOT AND KICK IT !
etc.
To put the ball on the floor near the other person's foot could then be interpreted as "use this object in the way it is usually used with a person's foot", e.g. KICK IT ! (this subset, for the s.l.d. child perhaps includes STAND ON IT ! , since such a child often does this.
A further action of the child on the adult or the adult on the child, could be a physical prompt of an action, with the objects,
e.g.
Person Pe1 could physically prompt person Pe2 to move his hand, holding the ball, to his foot, and to leave it there. (As a preparation to kick it etc) An imperative action
Person Pe1 could then wait for a response, and if none was forthcoming, physically prompt person Pe2 to kick the ball. Another imperative.
There is a sequence of actions here, following the usual plan format
collect the required objects, (this includes the other person, if he is required to do something)
bring the objects to the others person's attention, e.g. present them to his eyes etc
get them to the work place, bring them together, e.g. to use a ball to be kicked, the object to be kicked, the ball, is brought to IT ' S work place, it's place of use, i.e. the vicinity of the person's foot
make the kicking movement, (this would be analysed in terms of draw the foot back, stop, etc)
This sequence involves indicative and imperative elements
It is a sequence one would go through to try to get a person to do something, to see if he is capable of it, and incidentally to see what his level of communication is, kick a ball in D.D.S.T.
Another dimension or sequence involves different levels of acting on the person to get him to do the action, which also tests the person's level or type of (receptive) communication.
So one might SIGN the desired action, or MIME it etc.
Plans
The child's plan needs to be implemented in the right place, and at the right time, that is where and when the opportunity exists. At a primitive level this might merely involve a cue stimulus which releases a behaviour which achieves a certain effect, even as primitive as an I.R.M. e .g. the red spot on a mother bird's beak producing a pecking response from the baby bird which makes the mother disgorge food for the baby to eat.
At a much higher level the child deliberately waits for her opportunity to put a plan into action.
We must consider the dimension of COMPLEXITY of the plan
We must start with the most basic elementary plan to teach the child and then elaborate it as the child becomes more skilled. For example the s.l.d. child is will not at first need the elaboration wherein he reasons that he may not be able to use an emptied jam jar for its original purpose, to contain jam, but he could keep it and use it for something else, some other function its structure and form fits it for, e.g. not to contain jam, but to contain turps to clean paint brushes with.
Since such children will probably not be motivated to be do such an activity, (and it would be too dangerous for them anyway), this elaboration will probably never be needed for these children.
We'll start with:-
n.r.a.,
a very simple basic biogenic need drive, e.g. desire for a smartie,
a very simple problem, e.g. the sweet is in view but on a table a few feet away from the child,
and so
a very simple plan e.g. the child has to walk the few feet to the table to get the sweet.
Consider this diagram
Plan - n.r.a. of person Pe1
event1 ---------->event2---------->event3---------->etc, leading to----------> Goal
^
| ^
| | ^
| | | ^
t.r.a.1 | | | | (as on left) (as on left)
| | | |
| | |
t.r.a.2 | |
| |
demo |
|
p.c.s.
Pe2
etc
The diagram shows clearly two of the dimensions we talk about in our scheme
1. the plan structure, seen in the behaviour of person Pe1,
and
2. the different ways in which
(i) a person Pe2, can prompt the actions of another person, Pe1, at varying points of the plan sequence, i.e. by
a. t.r.a. i
b. t.r.a. ii
c. t.r.a. iii
d. DEMO-imitation i
e. DEMO-imitation ii
f. t.r.a. - p.c.s.
g. pcs
etc
and in which
(ii) Pe1 can
BE prompted by Pe2, i.e. by
a. t.r.a. i
b. t.r.a. ii
c. t.r.a. iii
d. demo-IMITATION i
e. demo-IMITATION ii
f. t.r.a. - p.c.s.
g. pcs
etc
(Recall that
t.r.a. i is a physical prompt on a part of a persons body to try to get motor organs to move or act in some way, push mum to the car keys on the table in the hall to try to get her to take us out in the car to the shops to buy sweets
t.r.a. ii is the presentation of an object to a persons motor organs to try to prompt him to use them in an appropriate way, e.g. put car keys into mother's hands to get her to take us out in the car to the shops to buy sweets
t.r.a. iii is the presentation of an object to a persons sensory organs to try to prompt him to use them in an appropriate way, e.g. present car key to mother's eyes to get her to take us out in the car to the shops to buy sweets
etc )
Less clearly shown, but implicit, is
the dimension of the degree of COMPLEXITY of the plan
Another feature shown but not so clearly is hybridisation etc, i.e. we can have pure t.r.a., and pure p.c.s., but also a hybrid t.r.a.- p.c.s.
Note that in a plan sequence:-
event 1, e1, --------------->event2, e2
e1 is followed by, (often), e2, and so
e1 can mean or suggest e2, ( ' forwards' implication),
and, at a higher level,
e2 can mean or suggest e1, ('backwards' implication)
(This second form is more complicated and probably involves symbolisation, in some way, of the forward sequence of events in t.r.a. In this way one can run the symbols forwards, and the things represented will seem to be scanned backwards in time)
The role of Pe1 might be taken by child or adult, and similarly with the role of Pe2
Now we have to relate the ideas of the above to the model of
S---------------> O --------------->R
|
|
|
d
and the varying ways in which
O
can respond to an
S,
involving different tasks, or 'Aufgaben',
e.g.
imitate
copy
transform, in varying more and more complex ways
Note that
Pe2 might be communicating to Pe1 what he want to do HIMSELF, (and requires Pe1's permission or other help),
or
what he wants Pe1 to do.
So the E, in DDST demos or mimes kicking a ball, but he wants the CHILD to do it, while Debbie pulls down her knickers to show SHE wants to urinate or defecate
(In the former case observe that if E actually kicks the ball this is a lower form of communication, say it is demonstration, in the form of the actual event being represented.(or at least the class of event which is required, so for
E kicking the ball
read
YOU kicking the ball
But E may stop short of actually kicking the ball, what type of communication, (what type of ?demo?) is this?
Concept Sorting Test
In the usual sort of concept sorting test the child is presented with a collection of actual objects and is given the task of putting the things that 'go together', in the same pile(s) or group(s) on the table.
Why is this spatial symbolism a very natural one?
Because getting objects from their store place(s) and taking them to their 'work area(s)', maybe the same place, 'assembling' them, to form compound objects, to form new situations, perhaps the start of new events and processes is an early step in the process of implementing a plan, resulting in the production of a goal object, situation, activity, event or process, in the primitive behaviours of n.r.a. and t.r.a.
(At a somewhat higher level the child would be given symbols, of objects, situations, events and activities or processes to sort)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another model which might be useful in organising the curriculum, the set of teaching tasks to be aimed at by the teacher, we will call
Model 3
Consider an activity, event, process, Ex
A person P1 does some action Ac3 with objects obj1, obj4, obj6 etc., in a certain place, Pl 6, at a certain time, T 7.
For example P1, (noun, subject) does something to, (verb, e.g. kicks) (noun, direct object, e.g. ball, with his foot, (noun, indirect object)
Or a person touches their head with their hand
Or, at a simpler level, a person may not be immediately involved.
For example take a situation or event involving inanimate objects, e.g. fire burning in the grate, on a winter�s day, or a fire burning in the
grate on a hot summers day, or a fire burning ones precious books, or a fire on the living room carpet.
Consider the diagram
Task
|
|
V
St ---------------> O ----------------> Response
The stimulus, (St )
This might consist of
an attribute of an object
an object or objects
a situation or situations
an event, or events, actions
a process or processes
It might involve, as well as, or instead of, objects as mere objects,
symbols, objects which are at least partly, to be regarded as symbols
Pe1, (child or adult), might
1. kick a ball
2. use pencil, paper to draw something, of varying degrees of complexity
3. pat her own thigh
4. give the car keys to his mother
5. drop her pants and knickers in the classroom
Any of these events, actions might be a St for another person Pe 2, (just as might simpler entities like attributes of objects, complete objects
and situations)
If Pe 1 deliberately presents these to Pe 2, for the purposes of communication, this is t.r.a.
If Pe 1 presents an attribute of an object to another person he must isolate this from the other atributes.
For example he might isolate the colour of the object, by exposing only part of the object, though a little peephole,
so that other attributes of the object are not perceptible.
The stimulus might be of varying degrees of complexity, e.g. in 2 Pe 1 might draw, in ascending order of complexity,
A vertical line
A circle
A square
A diamond
In describing an event we might employ the symbolism used in the Stokoe system of coding signs, especially manual signs. is the hand, the
So if a person touches his head with his hand, the object used is the hand, the shape might be immaterial. The start point is so and so and the
end point, (dez or tab?), is the person's head
The task
The task, for Pe2, as intended by Pe1, might be to
Imitate or copy what Pe 1 does or did
1. kick the same ball, (demo-imitation)
2. use the pencil and paper to draw something, same thing Pe 1 drew
3. pat Pe 1�s thigh, or back (demo-imitation)
The task might be more complex, e.g. to carry on a normal sequence, to do the usual next things
4 get in the car, with the child, (Pe 1), drive to the shops, and buy sweets for the child, for Pe 1)
5 take child to the place she normally urinates or defecates in, the toilet
The complexity of St has a bearing on the complexity of Pe2�s response
Note that imitation and copy are two rather different tasks, and to copy is more difficult than to imitate.
To imitate is to do what the other person has just done, or is doing.
To copy is to produce the end product of the other person�s actions without seeing
how it was done, without seeing the method of achieving it
Pe 1 has to communicate to Pe 2, what the task is, what he wants him to do with the stimulus, (encoding or expression)
Pe 2 has to understand what it is that Pe1 wants him to do, what the task is, (decoding or reception).
This communication may be done in various ways,
One might get this across in a very simple way where the child can only use trial and error. If he gets it right
and does the right thing we reward him. If not we don't, or we punish him.
Here the child can only determine what the task was, what E wanted from him, from the other person's response
(+ or -), to his response.
The child, Pe 2, has to deduce the task, what Pe1 wants of him, from what Pe 1 rewards in his behaviour, (e.g. social,
e.g. a smile)
??Imitation is the simplest, the default response???
E: "2 + 2 = ?"
O: "2 + 2 = ?"
rather than
O: "2 + 2 = 4"
Also see Father Ted and the shaving cream incident
This shows that demonstration, with symbolism, is higher than a form with no symbolism, to be taken literally, of course.
A better way to get the nature of the task across might be to have a third person, Pe3, model the desired behaviour.
For example
St. = Pe1 puts his hand on his head
Pe3 puts his hand on his head, and Pe1 rewards him
So Pe2 should conclude that if she imitates Pe1, (her response is this), she will get a reward
Of course the task might be misread, as merely being that Pe1 wants Pe2 to put her hand on her head, irrespective of what he does.
This often happens of course in teaching a child. This might be related to the common phenomenon of perseveration
Can we say that a response whose correctness depends on two factors, ( St, and the Task), is more difficult than one whose
correctness depends on only one?
On reflection this is obviously an incorrect analysis, there must be a task of some type, even if this is only a pre-conscious,
or default, assumed task of the simplest type.
What we must say is that in the case where any changes in what response the individual must make, depend only on a change in the St, e.g. what
the demonstator does, the task remaining the same, this is easier than if both the stimulus and the task changes
The task may actually be to put her hand on her head if he puts his hand on his head.
and
to kick a ball if he kicks the ball, etc etc.
i.e.
he wants her to do whatever he does, to imitate or copy his actions
Recall our previous remarks about there being two dimensions of development in communication
longitudinal, ('horizontal') symbolism
and
('vertical' symbolism)
longitudinal, ('horizontal') symbolism
Let us consider a commonly experienced sequence of events or actions, in n.r.a.
e1-------->e2--------->e3----------e4
(These events may be purely inanimate, or involve a person, as in the discussion above)
In the more normal and easier, forwards implication,
In t.r.a. e1 can represent or symbolise e2, e2 can symbolise e3, so e1 can symbolise e4 etc
For example
In the more sophisticated backwards implication,
e3 can represent e2, etc
This must be considered to be only possible by the use of symbolism, representational processes,
which can tranform the case into forwards implication again.
'vertical' symbolism
e1 might only refer to
itself
or
it might represent something else,
e.g.
in the 'kick a ball' item of the Denver, the examiners leg and foot represent the examinee's
leg and foot
(More remotely a person's nose may represent his penis, in a dream. This is the province of Freudian symbolism).
e1'
|
|
|
|
e1
If we put the two types together we get a diagram like this
e1'
|
|
|
e1-------->e2---------->e3---------->e4
Can we use our previously discussed communication types,
i.e.
t.r.a.
demo-imitation
t.r.a. � p.c.s.
p.c.s.
s.c.s.
mime
sign
to get the task across?
His idea of the task might not match that of Pe 1.
For example an adult kicks a ball, in DDST, and wants the child to kick the ball, using his own leg and foot.
But the child may misunderstand and physically prompt the adult to kick the ball again, with his foot.
If the child is not to simply copy what Pe 1 does, or did, there is a degree of transformation.
(Or we could say that there is always transformation, and call the imitation or copy scenario
one of zero transformation).
If the St is a symbol, or set of symbols, e.g. a statement, in some modality or channel, e.g. auditory - vocal,
and the task is to imitate, (or better copy, since the method of production with such a channel or modality is
rather obscured), Pe 2 , e.g. an s.l.d.child, simply echoes what Pe 1 said, (echolalia).
If there is a meaningful response the transformation is greater than zero, the child translates
the message, interprets it and does something,
e.g. �Come here!�
The task might be e.g.
Give something in the same class
e.g.
given �cat� say �dog�, (both animals, or mammals etc)
Give a higher order, or more inclusive and broader, more abstract category
e.g.
given �cat�, and �dog� say �animals� or �mammals�
given �Amanda�, �Sarah�, �Samantha�, �Lilla�, say �girls�
The Response, by Pe 2
This can be correct or incorrect
If the task is to imitate or copy, then a correct response will be as complex as the stimulus, and more, just the same.
If the Stimulus was Pe1 kicking a ball, and the task as given by Pe 1 to Pe2 is to imitate, and Pe 2�s response is to
kick the ball, he is successful, his response is correct. He has understood the task, what Pe1 wanted him to do, and he has done it properly
Otherwise he fails, and his response is incorrect.
Analysis
Consider this description of an event e5
Pe1 does activity act6 with objects obj4, obj7, and obj8, in place Pl4, at time T9
Demonstration-imitation
This, e5, might be presented, as a Stimulus, to Pe2.
This might cause Pe2 to do the same, so the new event, ne5, has all the features of e5, except that
Pe1--->Pe2, Pe2 is substituted for Pe1, one person represents another person
For example psychologist demonstrates 'kick ball' in the Denver, and child copies or imitates. He stands for the child,
and specifically his leg represents the child's leg and his foot represents the child's foot
Demonstration - imitation
Another example is Aza and the thigh patting. She pats her thigh to request a repeat of the just previous action, when the
psychologist patted her on the back. Here Aza represents the psychologist, by herself, his hand by her hand, as in the above.
But an additional symbolism is that the actual aim of the action, her thigh, might represent her back, i.e. one part of a person's
body may represent a different part of the same person's body. This is a special case, more generally one object in
the event, e.g. event e5, may represent another, e.g. according to one writer on symbolism, and body language asserts that the gesture
of a woman pushing her toe into and out of her shoe is representing sexual intercourse, with her shoe representing her vagina, and her
toe representing a man's penis. (Again we are straying into Freudian type symbolism here, I am afraid!)
The task, given by Pe1, to Pe2, is to imitate or copy, and the process is demonstration-imitation.
Demonstration II
Or we could have Pl4----->Pl7, one place represents another, e.g. the classroom represents the toilet, but every other aspect of
the event remains the same, e.g. Pe1 remains Pe1. Pe 1 wants the modified event to occur.
Note that here the knicker-dropping represents defecating or urinating by the ordinary t.r.a. process. e1 (pulling down
knickers)-------->e2, (sitting on the toilet bowl)----------->e3, (defecating and or urinating in it)
Debbie is play acting preparing to defecate and or urinate, she is not really going to urinate and or defecate on the classroom floor
Or Pe1 could do activity act6 with objects, and the objects are body parts of Pe2
For example Pe1 physically prompts Pe2 to kick a ball, in the Denver
Consider this event, say e8,
Pe2 does activity act9 with objects obj4, and obj7, in place Pl4, at time T3.
n.r.a.
Pe1 might produce this, with full force, with Pe2 becoming one of the objects of the event which Pe1 produces.
Pe2 becomes like an inanimate object, and Pe1 acts physically on motor organs of Pe2, e.g. Pe1 'throws' Pe2's
hand in some direction.(n.r.a.)
t.r.a. type I
Or Pe1 physically prompts this, with weak force, so we get:- Pe2 does activity act9 with objects obj4, and obj7, in
place Pl4, at time T3. Pe2 is cued by Pe1, his actions, which are seen and felt, by Pe2. Pe1 physically prompts
Pe2, e.g. contacts Pe2's hand and weakly 'throws' it in some direction. This is t.r.a. type 1
So here Pe1 presents this:-
[Pe2 doing activity act9 with objects obj4, and obj7, in place Pl4, at time T3]
to Pe2, (via sight, and touch, and kinaesthesis),
so Pe2 can know it's what Pe1 wants him to do, (and maybe the next step is a common sequence of actions)
As a diagram:-
Pe1 Pe1 (if necessary) Pe1 (if necessary)
| | |
| | |
V V V
e1-------------------->e2----------------------->e3--------
e1 is:- [Pe2 doing activity act9 with objects obj4, and obj7, in place Pl4, at time T3]
e2 is:- [Pe2 doing activity act7 with objects obj4, and obj7, in place Pl4, at time T3]
(or the objects can change, and the place, and the time, as well as, or instead of, the activity??)
The first thing that stikes us in the above discussion is that: one entity most naturally represents
another entity of the same type or nature.
1. one person quite naturally represents another person,
2. one part of a person quite naturally represents the corresponding part of another person
3. one part of a person quite naturally represents another part of the same person
4. one place quite naturally represents another place
2. In demonstrating 'kick ball' in the Denver, E's foot represents the child's foot.
But why does E's foot represent the child's foot, how is the child supposed to know this?
If the child doesn't understand then E can of course drop down some levels in his communication style,
and perhaps use t.r.a. type 1 and physically prompt the child to move his leg and foot so as to kick the ball
But this doesn't answer the question, does it?
4. In demonstration II, one room represents another, e.g. for Debbie S. the classroom represents a toilet.
But why does the classroom represent a toilet, how is the adult supposed to know that it represents
a toilet?
Debbie is signalling she wants to urinate and or defecate, (by t.r.a. type 1). But she does not actually
defecate or urinate on the classroom floor, (n.r.a.)
So she is 'saying', "I want to defecate and or urinate. I am not doing it here, will not do it here, it is the wrong place,
please take me to the right place to defecate and or urinate, to a toilet."
One supposes one could read this as mere t.r.a., with no vertical symbolism at all, where the classroom only represents
itself, where Debbie drops her pants and knickers and looks at an adult for permission to go onto the next step, (when
she might actually urinate and or defecate on the classroom floor)
But this reading is certainly wrong, because she
Or is she threatening, blackmailing the adult and 'saying' "take me to the toilet or I'll shit on the classroom floor!"
(Perhaps more remotely, significance can cross entity class boundaries, e.g. ------)
Representation of one body part by another
Consider this piece of t.r.a. behaviour
S. M., a young s.l.d. girl is sitting next to a male staff member on a sofa in the girls' lounge. She had been very fond of, and familiar with,
this person, since she started the school, as an even younger girl. S. takes his hand and tries to place it on her skirt, just over her genitals!
If he had done as she was 'asking' him to do she would have been pleased. But what if the man had instead just put his hand on her shoulder?
This is a body part, its true, but she clearly would not have been happy with this, it's not what she wanted.
It is a totally different kind of body part, one is a sexual body part, the other a non-sexual body part. What she wanted
was sexual stimulation.
This interpretation is clearly correct as on another occasion, very close in time to this other occasion, she tried to feel his genitals,
though his trousers!
So we can organise body parts into sub-types, maybe:-
body
|
|
-----------------------------
| |
| |
sexual parts non-sexual parts
| |
----------- -----------------
| | | |
| | | |
Iary 2ary arm legs
vagina breasts | |
penis ------- -------
| | | |
hand foot
| |
----- -----
| | | |
thumb fingers toes
So one type of body part most naturally represents another body part of the same type
Notice however that in the above heirarchical structure we have added a different form of sub-division,
one based on the natural divisions of the body, on the physical connections between body parts
(Compare this diagram with diagram d_200 above. Both figures to be describing the same phenomenon.)
Auditory - vocal channel communication, verbal, spoken, (and secondarily written), natural languages
Even without the advantages of a language, (Chinese), which has a written form unique in languages, making the transition from our graphical
systems to the written form relatively easy, as compared with all other languages, most oriental languages have
features which make the transition from communicative abilities in the visuo-spatial channel, e.g. symbol and sign, to auditory - vocal
spoken language, relatively easy compared with European languages.
We will take all our examples from Thai, but the comments are probably true for many, or most, other oriental languages
Thai
The grammar is simple, unlike the typical European language, an advantage for the s.l.d. child. The structures of the language are much more
compatible with the structures of a visual language
Nouns, Number
There is no distinction in the noun between singular and plural, e.g. by the use of a suffix, such as '-s', in English,
dog dogs
child children
so that
dek,
can mean
'child' or 'children'
But one way of indicating the plural is to duplicate the noun, so we have
dek child
dek dek children
This would parallel what we could do in s.c.s. to indicate the plural, but there we would be indicating a specific plural, e.g.
we would show one symbol for 'one child', but a group of three symbols to indicate 'three children'
These are ways of indicating the attribute of numerosity of a group of items, discrete quantity
Adjectives, Degree
A quite similar approach might be made to the related question of the indication of the value of an attribute of an object, etc. which
is continously variable, signalled by adjectives.
In Thai we get a similar practice to the above, so that there is again duplication, this time of adjectives
So, for example, we get
phaeng = expensive
phaeng phaeng = very expensive
Word Order
In different languages this might be
S - V - O
or
S - O - V
etc.
It might seem that the most natural of these would be
S - O - V
the boy, the ball, kicked
Arguments for this form:-
1. It seems to reflect the n.r.a. and t.r.a. process, in a plan of action, where the person first gathers the means objects to be used,
and second, imposes actions and changes in the attributes of these and the relations between them
2. It seems to reflect the natural feeling that certain entities are active agents, e.g. people, and animals
and natural forces, e.g. the wind, causing various events, and that others are acted on by these, are passive, 'suffer' the action.
The grammatical S, subject, is used to signal the active element, while the grammatical O, object, is used to
signal the passive element.
Topic-comment
This method of constructing a statement or sentence is often used in sign, at least in b.s.l., and we think is a useful model
to use for sign and for any possible verbal development. In Thai this form does occur quite often, as in, e.g.
baan khorng khun yuu thii nay?
house belong you is at where?
rather than the typical English
S -- O -- V
structure
Arguments in favour of this:-
1. It occurs in sign, and would then translate easily to a verbal form of communication
2. It names the most important thing first. It names the thing you must think about first, in giving an answer. First you must
think about houses, then a specific house, and then describe, give the value of, an attribute of this, here its
spatial location.
We have said that both topic-comment and S - O - V are good models for a language for the s.l.d. child. Which should be used, or when
should one be used, and when should the other be used?
In the topic comment example above there is no action involved in the objects being talked about, but in the boy kicking the ball
example, there is
So it would seem that this should form the basis for deciding when to use topic - comment and when to use S - O - V
Same structure for question and answer
The above example shows another feature of Thai, where the question, and the answer, are of the same form, so the question word,
and the answer word, occupy the same position in the sentence, e.g.
Qu. baan yuu thii nay
(house is at where?)
Answ. baan yuu thii nan
(house is at there)
This is in contrast to the English which would have
Qu. Where is the house?
Answ. The house is there
Clearly for the s.l.d. child, the Thai procedure is better. Unlike the English, in giving his answer he does not need to restructure
the sentence
Question words
Instead of the normal English question words
who?
where?
when?
how?
it might be advantageous to translate these into the basic meaning elements,
who? = what, or which, person?
where? = what, or which, place?
when? = what, or which, time?
how? = what, or which, way?
??
Somewhat related to this topic-comment distinction is this type of construction
ja klap meuarai saap may khrap
(he) will return when do you know?
rather than the English
do you know when he will return?
Classifiers
As in English we have constructions such as
three bottles of beer
in Thai the same thing is done, in this case,
bia saam khuat
In Thai however, and in other oriental languages, this practice is far more extensive.
The procedure seems a very natural one, which we should adopt for any language development
But the order is more logical in these languages, and we should also use the order, happily natural in Thai.
The order, for the number one, again seems to follow the natural order, in n.r.a., and t.r.a., for certain actions,
When the classifier refers to a measure, first we decide on what we are going to measure out, e.g. sugar,
Next we decide what we will dole it out in/by e.g. a teaspoon,
Last we decide how many of these we will dole out, and put, e.g. in our tea-cup, e.g. one
So we will say
sugar, teaspoons, one
But for numbers over one, the order changes to
sugar, three, teaspoons
This does not seems to match so well to natural action and it would be better if the order for one item were used for any number of items
The same approach could be taken to this sort of process when it is further removed from the everyday experience of a child, e.g. when
a factory worker, or machine, fills cans with baked beans, or bottles with beer.
His experience is the reverse of what the factory worker, or machine is doing. He is opening cans and pouring out the
contents into another container. One might think that for him the appropriate order should be -------
This kind of thing used to be done in the army, when, to refer to three pairs of socks, the quartermaster or issuing officer would say
"socks, pairs, three" etc
rather than
"three pairs of socks"
This might help the process of finding the item and doling it out
He first goes to the socks section of the store, really the 'pairs' is redundant here? and takes out three
What if the classifier is not a measure word?
Verb strings, noun strings etc
The practice, in Thai, of putting verb1 + verb2 + verb3 etc in a string to explicitly describe the successive events of a process
seems a good one for communication.
For example,
tong khon tuu yen kap feenicee khun pai wai chan bon
had to carry fridge and furniture ascend go leave upstairs
This is like compounding native nouns together, used in Thai, and many other languages, (extensively in German), to explicitly
denote the meaning, e.g.
Krankenhaus, Eisenbahnwagon.
Somewhat similar to the latter is the practice used a lot in English, where the elements might be words from a different language
or languages, especially Latin, Greek, and French, e.g. television
These two practices strike me as better than the practice of forming a new word, with no meaningful elements, for an entity. Surely
this is easier because the communicator could, if necessary guess the meaning, and certainly will remember the meaning more easily.
This will especially be the case if the element words are native words, as is, or was, usually done in German.
A language with these features, e.g. Thai, will be more suitable for the slow learner, than a language such as English
In general the simplicity of the grammar of Thai, and other oriental languages,
is clearly better for the s.l.d. child than the complex grammars of European
languages such as English, even more so in the case of German, and even more in
the case of Russian.
More points in this connection, examples taken from Thai
The practice of using a proper name, rather than a pronoun
The practice, e.g.
baan ooy mot thuam
house my completely flooded
(said by ooy)
ooy beua ja taay
I (am) bored fed up very (with it)
(again said by ooy)
is obviously also helpful, for the slow learner. The difficulty posed by
personal pronouns such as �I�, �me�, �you�, etc, for the s.l.d., and �autistic�
child, and early normal speaker, where the meaning of the word is partly
determined by who is uttering the word, is well known. Such children will often
get the pronoun wrong, or speak in the Thai manner, e.g.
will refer to themselves by name, instead of using a personal pronoun, e.g.
Fred is tired,
(said by Fred)
Even when pronouns are used, at least we do not have the differences in the
form of pronouns in the nominative and accusative cases, as in English and
all? other European languages:-
in Thai
di-chan
(for a woman)
is �I� or �me�
etc
Omission of a form of the verb 'to be'
The simple apposition of noun, and value of attribute, without the 'correct' form
of the verb to be, is another feature of Thai, which an s.l.d. child, or
early normal English speaker might be expected to display. This is another
advantage of Thai, for the Thai s.l.d. or �autistic� child.
So we might simply get
Fred tired
Relative position of noun and adjective,
In Thai, as in the case of many European languages, and unlike English, the adjective is placed after the noun.
So, while we have
on the one hand
the red house
on the other we have
la maison rouge
baan sii daeng
etc
We see this as the most natural order, for this reason. In the process of locating the symbol we need for some communication,
either an external symbol kept in a physical store, (in s.c.s. for example), or internal symbols 'in ones head', we need to
successively narrow down the search, to be systematic and efficient. This has to follow the type of organisation of the symbols,
whether external and obviously physical, or internal representational processes. The type of organisation, of hierarchy, depends
on what we see as the most important aspects, or attributes of objects, situations, and activities.
Now it would be possible to have this kind of hierarchy
colour:- red green
| |
| |
---------- --------------
| | | |
| | | |
type of object:- houses shoes houses shoes
This might be appropriate if our prime interest was in the colour of the thing. This would depend on what
our need, or motive or plan was. For example we might want to buy something of the exact colour of one of our shoes,
so we take the shoe to the shop and try to get a match to the colour
But usually it is the type of object, which is more important than the single attribute of colour, (or group
of three related dimensions perhaps, i.e. hue, brightness, and saturation)
In this case the type of organisation would be something like
type of object:- house shoes
| |
| |
--------- -------------
| | | |
| | | |
colour:- red green red green
The reason for this could be found in the fact that an object is an assembly of many different attribute values, not just a
single one, as in colour, (or three perhaps), and that the uses of a thing, the functional concepts or classes of which it might
be an exemplar, might be quite large in number.
And so we get, e.g.
not
green shoes
but
shoes, green.
Relate this to the discussion on army style specification of objects
However this is not the end of the matter
Take the case of this expression, where an object is named, using a noun, and an adjective describes the object's composition
3 silk handkerchiefs
There are two ways to approach the problem
a. A manufacturer takes some material, e.g. silk, and makes a number of handkerchiefs out of it. To accord with his process here one would say
silk, hankies, three,
i.e. noun first, and adjective describing the material or composition second
b. The buyer organises his clothes in cupboards, wardrobes, and drawers, in his bedroom. He keeps handkerchiefs in one particular drawer;
putting hankies of silk in one part of the drawer and hankies made out of cotton in another. He locates silk hankies by first
locating the hankies, and then the silk hankies. In this case the appropriate verbal description would be
hankies, silk, three,
i.e. noun first and adjective second
Relative position of verb and adverb
If one produces an event or activity, one must take the appropriate objects, put them into various situations and then produce
changes in the attributes of the objects or the situations
One might produce an event in a certain place, at a certain time, and in a certain manner. These attributes of the event are represented using
various types of adverb. Consider them separately
Place. We have to choose the place for an event first, before the event occurs. So the adverb of place should come before the verb describing
the event
Time. We have to choose the time for an event first, before the event occurs. So the adverb of time should come before the verb describing
the event
Manner. This appears to be quite different from the first two cases. It does not seem possible to separate the action from the manner in which
it is performed. Therefore it would seem as appropriate to have the adverb before the verb, as to have it after it
Chinese
The remarks above about Thai and other oriental languages will obviously also apply to spoken Chinese.
As we said we are mainly interested in the development of visuo-spatial-motor methods of communication, using visually
easily observable movements, gestures, symbols, and signs,believing these to be far easier for the s.l.d. child to learn
than the complex, subtle, fine, rapid, partly hidden movements
of the lips, tongue, etc involved in a spoken language.
Visual types of communication do not lead naturally to a spoken language and its representation by graphical symbols.
So there is an obvious problem in the transition to speech from these forms of communication.
In my view this is not a serious issue, if the mentally handicapped child can use a sophisticated symbol or sign system this is very
satisfactory, and it is up to the adult to learn to communicate in the same manner
Unfortunately this view does not seem to be generally shared by parents, and by many speech therapists, who feel that they must get the child to
talk, and be, (or appear) 'normal', and see visual forms of communication as second rate.
But there is one living language, (and only one, as I understand it) which uniquely is in harmony with our graphical forms of communication,
written Chinese.
This might be viewed as an ideal, and possible, target for our visual motor channel methods of communication, for severely mentally handicapped
people in China
The written language is not a represention of the spoken language, (or at least has a considerable amount which does not do this), but is
pictographic, and ideographic, to an important extent.
Though the modern characters often seem hardly recognisable as such one might use, with the handicapped, as a stepping stone to the modern form,
forms believed or known in history to be precursors of the modern characters, and whose meaning is more clearly recognisable.
(This page is currently being worked on)
If you would like to get more help in setting up this sort of
communication system in your home, school, hospital or other
place you can:-
E-mail me
© John and Ian Locking
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