Stage One - A Different Journey

Developing a topic-based communication book with six symbols per page

There are some learners for whom the original six symbol Stage One page layout will be the most symbols on a page that they can cope with. However, the activity-based nature of Stage One will eventually prove limiting. In this instance, we would suggest developing a full communication book using the six symbol layout. The Menu Pages at Stage Two can be used as inspiration for the type of pages you may want to develop.

In this situation, do not feel constrained by the Stage One aims.

As you both gain confidence with the communication book, you could start to model linking two or more symbols at a time as you chat e.g. “you want more bubbles”, “let’s water the plants”. You could also encourage the learner to make use of the core symbols alongside the topic vocabulary. If the learner selected a symbol such as water on Page 5 garden, you could look at the core symbols and wait expectantly to see if they select one. There’s a world of difference between watering more plants and stopping watering plants so respond accordingly. If they don’t select a symbol, you could model this by pointing to one yourself, e.g. “let’s water more”.

It may be worth revisiting encoding from time-to-time as things do change. You might also want to consider a communication book based around listener mediated scanning (see brief description of this strategy in Stage One (Moving on)). You can find out more about different ways of accessing symbol-based material in the free eBook Access to Symbol-Based Resources when Pointing is Difficult available from Ace Centre's website here.