Teaching symbols to adults
Coming soon – A Cowboy Poem
We have been working on a themed project about cowboys as part of the induction programme for new students on the SLD programme in our college. I will post some reflections on how it has gone, but here is the symbol text if you’d like to have a look at it:
Example of Symbols in a blog site:
Here is a sample of some symbol supported writing taken from the blog I set up last year with a group of students (the name is fictitious).
One would assume that most youngsters entering FE from special ed have some knowledge of symbols and sign systems, but unfortunately, this doesnt seem to be the case at all. At CoNEL, we have developed the practice of teaching all of our young people with severe learning difficulties a sign system they can manage. For those with moderate to severe learning difficulties, this has been the Makaton vocabulary; whilst for SLD/PMLD students, we develop a bespoke system for each student, using Makaton or personalised signs.We have found that teaching verbal or semi-verbal students to sign to their non-verbal peers and vice versa has improved the communication of all students – it would be really interesting to hear if anyone else has found this to be the case????We teach signs through project themes, incorporating new signs usually into story -telling. However, we have had more problems developing symbol supported writing to accompany the sign system.
I’m going to use this page to record how i am working with a new group of SLD, mostly non-verbal students, developing sign and symbol use through our first project, which is the “Wild West”. My first problem is going to be how to open windows metafiles on a Mac, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!
on October 18th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
When I taught in F.E in Somerset it was clear. We used STC, Somerset Total Communication ,a signs and symbols system using Writing with Symbols from Widgit . This was used by Adult Learning Disability Services and I believe the schools. Now in West Sussex there dooesn’t seem to be any clear direction. The local special school uses Boardmaker, we have Writing with Symbols from Widgit but don’t use it .
I would like us to buy the colour Communicate in Print
Which is best Boardmaker or Communicate in Print?
on April 25th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Hi Judy, thanks for posting. It’s a tricky one, but i would probably go for Communicate in Print, (which is the newer version of writing in symbols), just because it has more flexibility at different ability levels than Boardmaker seems to. I came across the Somerset symbols not long ago, and a great resource for people with learning difficulties using hospital services. Its a shame that this isn’t used consistently any more, as it was a very clear approach by the looks of it.