EVALUATION OF RECEPTIVE AND EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE OF A CHILD USER OF ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

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1 EVALUATION OF RECEPTIVE AND EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE OF A CHILD USER OF ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM Cândice Lima Morechi 1, Maria Amelia Almeida 2 ; Stephen von Tetzchner 3 1 Anhanguera Educacional, São José do Rio Preto, Brasil 2 Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação Especial, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, Brasil. 3 Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway Background and Aim The augmentative and alternative communication allows people with communication difficulties to produce flags behavior during interactive process, and thus, provides the creation of meanings (BRYEN; JOYCE, 1986;). Individuals with difficulties in expressive and receptive language the augmentative and alternative communication does not only present as a possibility of expression but also as a facilitator in the process of understanding of oral language (NUNES, 2003). The objective of this research is to characterize the receptive and expressive language skills of an alternative communication system user while performing comprehension tasks of words and statements presented from a graphic communication system. Method The project was submitted to the Ethics Committee of the Federal University of São Carlos, obtaining assent No. 192/2009. Participated in this study a female child (Francine), non-verbal, with cerebral palsy and age of 6 years and 6 months at the beginning of the study, an alternative communication System user for more than one year. A set of six tests was applied, when it was necessary, from verbal instructions, discriminating between pictures and graphic sentences those that best represented an action / particular object. Results Understanding Individual Symbols The task set consisting of a graphical symbol and four pictures in a total of 65 items (these being, considered two learning tasks). Francine hit 40 itens. An arbitrariness of some graphic symbols such as: ABOVE, IN FRONT BY been outstanding in Francine s performance. Understanding Graphics Sentences There were two different tasks for the sentences. At first, there was a graphic symbol for the sentence and four photos. The child should indicate the picture corresponding to the graphic symbol of the sentence. Of the fifteen presented tasks, Francine succeeded only in five. The "NO" it was sometimes ignored and the participant often seemed to rely more on iconicity than in conceptual knowledge. The second task was to find the phrase among the four that corresponded to the image shown. For Francine, choosing the right alternative was performed from the symbol / drawing relationship, disregarding the syntactic structure presented. So from the 15 items presented, she did correct only 5. This can be explained by the absence of interventions focusing on phrases construction to express desires and feelings. The third task was to find the phrase in one of the

2 frames corresponding to the contents of a short video. There were five items and the ability to review the video to change the answers given on the first try. In the first presentation, Francine did not get any right answer, what remained after the video replay. There is evidence of a greater difficulty in performing visual figure-ground analysis of scenes as well as in relation to working memory. The lack of child's experience with an understanding of activity and interpretation of sentences may have affected her performance. Symbol order of evaluation This task was intended to indicate the order of the symbols that best correspond to the displayed image. Of the 10 presented tasks, Francine was successful only in 4. The amount of symbols shown on each board, since such taskshas as alternatives four picotgráficas sentences, may have caused some difficulty in the choice of answers. The choice of sentences of different syntactic structure from that used in Brazilian Portuguese and chosen by Francine demonstrated how she appropriates the information presented to her and how she expreses herself. Understanding of an story written with graphic symbols A little story has been read / displayed for the child and, when finished reading, were made ten questions about the content. The questions were initially presented without the child could see the story, and then again presented with the story available for consultation. At the first opportunity, Francine hit just one of 10 questions. In the second presentation, there was an improvement, being able to hit 5 of 10 questions. The questions for comprehension task number 6 demanded that the children demonstrated the ability to understand and interpret text, being explicit the significant improvement of Francine performance after the recount, reinforcing the need for re reading as an adaptation strategy based on the specific needs of the student. Conclusion The act of communicating is not limited to skills of oral and/or written language; this act is also associated to non-verbal language skills (hand gestures, facial expressions, body postures, objects, pictograms, writing and digitized voice). In developing these skills, the individual has the ability to share as much of the means of communication as the socio-cultural environment (WALTER; NUNES; DELGADO, 2010; Tetzchner, 2009; NUNES, 2003).Representative symbols verbs, spatial relationships and emotions, were more difficult to interpret / discriminate than others. It was also identified some difficulty in execution and tasks involving sentences.these data seem to reflect that CA users were not used to see graphic sentences produced by others and had no flexibility to assimilate the graphic sentences for spoken language they were used to hear.it is also possible that children were not able to "bridge" the graphic sentence for a hearing or phonological construction that could be compared to phrases that were used to hear the expressions uttered by others (ROGER, Larson et al., 2010). REFERENCES BRYEN, D.N.; JOYCE, D.S. Sign language and severely handicapped. Journal of Special Education, v. 20, n. 2, p , NUNES, L.R.O.P. Modelos teóricos na comunicação alternativa e ampliada. In: NUNES, L.R.O.P. Favorecendo o desenvolvimento da comunicação em crianças e

3 jovens com necessidades educacionais especiais. Rio de Janeiro: Dunya, p ROGER J. S.; LARSON, S.; AUERBACH, K.; ENGLER, J.; TAUB, S.; LAKIN, K. C.. Individuals with intellectual disabilities and augmentative and alternative communication: Analysis of survey data on uptake of aided AAC, and loneliness experiences. AAC: AugmentativeandAlternativeCommunication. 26(2):87-96, TETZCHNER, S.V. Suporte ao desenvolvimento da comunicação suplementar e alternativa. In: DELIBERATO, D.; GONÇALVES, M.J.; MACEDO, E.C. Comunicação alternativa: teoria, prática, tecnologias e pesquisa. São Paulo: Memnin Edições Científicas, p WALTER, C.C.F. NUNES, L.R.O.P.; DELGADO, S.M.M. Avaliação da linguagem receptiva de adolescentes usuárias de sistemas de comunicação alternativa. In: MENDES, E.G.; ALMEIDA, M.A. (Org.). Das margens ao centro: perspectivas para as políticas e práticas educacionais no contexto da educação especial inclusiva. Araraquara, SP: Junqueira & Marin, 2010, p DECLARATION OF INTEREST STATEMENT: The authors disclose they have no financial or other interest in objects or entities mentioned in this paper

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