TRANSCRIPT - Texas Technology Access Program

And yeah. Miss Florida, don't miss the allergies. Alright, Emily, thank you for adding. Got it. Our recording has started so we can get started. Yay! Feel free to turn on your camera and say hello. Today it's going to be bliss tactile symbols with Shannon Page. So excited. Whoops. There we go. Before we start, the goal of our community and goal of tech T time is to build a community of practice to support each other while we're out instructing our students. By registering for the session, you're giving us permission. To publish the contents of the recording of this session on our site. And that could include your images or audio of you. So our meeting norms, feel free to speak up and ask a question. Please say your name before you start. And that way anyone who is just listening and maybe cannot see who you are. Well know who's talking if you have any questions but don't want to pipe in. I'll be monitoring our chat over here so. We will have your questions answered as they come in. So I'm going to hand things over to Shannon. Let me stop my share here. I don't think you were sharing. Was I sharing? Oh. I was not sharing. Well, it's alright. But I'll share now. You share now. I forgot to share this time. They just won't have the pretty background when the video starts. Alright. And hello Lisa from Mission Texas. Hello. Alright, we'll get started. So, this is gonna be tactile symbols and bliss symbols and that list symbolics is actually written wrong I'm now just noticing like an error on the very first slide. That's the human factor. I'm human. But Bliss symbolics is actually combined and bliss symbolics have been around since 1970 so we'll talk a little bit about that. But that's not going to be the major topic of this. Session. It's really getting people to think about symbology in general and what symbols are. And I think we. In all settings need to do a better job of recognizing the importance of symbols. And determining which symbols are best for our students and really giving our our students and adults robust systems. To communicate with and symbols are basically that. Tools for communication. I am Shannon Page. I am a speech language pathologist. I am kind of came around this the back door. I was a chemistry biology major up in the University of Northern Colorado. Decided I wasn't that I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Literally jumped ship and joined at the Navy. So I spent 4 years on a Well, 3 years on a ship and one year in boot camp and training schools. So I'm a Navy veteran. So Veterans Day is coming, so think about your veterans. So that's something I'm very passionate about. And then I got married, had 2 beautiful children and I decided, we had a really close family friend that She lost her husband in a helicopter crash and I thought, well, if something happens. To my husband, I would be flipping burgers at Burger King. And so a friend of mine talked me into, I wanted to be an occupational therapist, a friend of mine talked me into going into speech because there were no occupational therapy undergraduate programs in Houston. And I got accepted at the University of Houston. Alright, did my undergraduate there, got accepted to grad school and I hit the ground running and I have loved it ever since. The very first year I started on the floor in 2,000. I ended up with a couple of really complex kids that required augmentative communication. And the devices were so different then. I also had a set of twins that were the earliest. Twins to survive at Texas Children's at the time at like 2223 weeks gestational age. Both of them had vision lost. And both of them had, one was portable vision, one, I'm drawing a blank for terms, but. The other one was completely blind. And so, they, taught me a lot really right from the beginning on how to. Address. I think Engagement. Engagement from the very beginning. So I'm going to move forward. Okay. And I have worked so I said I was in the Navy and then I work public schools for 15 years. And now I then worked at the Education Service Center for 6 years and I've been, this is my second year at the Texas Technology Access Program. Out of the University of Texas. I'm going to tell you a little bit about our program just to make sure you all know we are a resource for you. And. And if you ever need to discuss something, about communication, I am a speech pathologist and I'm the education project manager and can help you at any time. Well, not any time, but almost any. And our role in the state of Texas is promoting independence for all Texans cradle to grave any Texans with disabilities. And our main goal is assistive technology and augmentative communication falls under that umbrella of assisted. Technology. So assistive technology would be some of your, Braille machines or some of your, I, Ruby beholders and your connect 12. So all of those wonderful tools that support individuals with vision impairments. So it's any item device or piece of equipment used to maintain or improve the functionality of people with disabilities, allowing them to be more independent in education, employment, recreation, and daily living activities. Assistive tech includes the services necessary to get use of to get and use the device including assessments, customizations, repair and training. And so many times people think it's just the tools, but it's also what you do, your orientation mobility, specialist teaching someone how to use, G, the. Gps on their watch or the tactile. The raise tactile machines and I'm gonna blur about my machines because it's the end of the day. But this is one of my favorite representatives. Judy Human was, an advocate she just passed away within this last year and she said for most of us technology makes things easier easier. For a person with disability. It makes things possible. And you are on that front line. Taking an individual who has basically nothing and moving them into as much of an independent life as we can possibly give them. So assistive technology, when we talk about assistive technology, we have devices that are for sensory. And that we're talking more like sensory impairments, other than your vision and hearing, but specifically we have vision tools hearing tools, tools for access. So you might have a student with a vision impairment. Who also has mobility issues and needs adaptive mounts or specialized placements because of the lighting or special light. So so today we're really gonna focus on even though we've got assistive technology in all of these domains. Today we're going to focus on communication. And those complex kids with vision, hearing, access, and sometimes sensory. Concerns. Or differences, like used differences. The mission for TTAP is really to increase access for all people with disabilities. Through the use of assistive technology. We want individuals to have that autonomous communication autonomous decision making, independence. We want to maximize their independence when they're adults. And the services, as a part of our organization, and we are federally funded under the AT Act, which was a federal grant. Every state has a program. Demonstrations of assistive technology. So we go to a lot of places and do demonstrations. We reuse, we have, we have some refurbished assistive technology that we try to get out into the hands of clients. There's some new financial loan resources that we have available on our, we, we don't financially loan things, but we help. We help people get the financial funding they need by providing them the resources and the different links and that will help with the writing of some of the reports if people are confused on like for augmented communications, got to make sure you mentioned medical necessity on insurance, things like that. We're always of course trying to update you with information, which is my role here today. And we're just a global resource. We wanna make sure you know where here. For our demonstration centers, we're located. We have 20 across the state and anybody. Can use our demonstration centers and where this really benefits you as a service provider is maybe you don't have time to work with the parent so you can send your parents to our demonstration centers if there's one in your area. So that we can show through our demonstration centers the parents how to use some of the equipment which saves you time working with the individual that has the disability. Family members can come advocates, maybe an advocate really wants. You to give an individual a certain kind of tool or device. And we can give. We can be that. Mediary person that can give the advocate some information on pros and cons of devices so that you don't have to be the bad guys saying that's not really what's in best interest of this individual. And what we're not, we don't do the evaluations, but we will support you on. In information to support your evaluation. We have these are just a link to our demonstration center sites and we have a website and I'm going to bring my screen over. And on our website. If you Click on here and we'll put this in the chat for you. Cause I'm gonna go through this really quick. You can find where demonstration centers are through the map here. So once this meeting is over, if you want to come back, see all these little cute purple dots are where our demonstration centers are. But the device loans are what I really think are underutilized across the state. And so if you're trying to do a trial with a student and you don't have a certain device and you can't get one from the vendor. We've got many devices in our limiting library. So all you have to do, anybody can borrow our devices if you're working with an individual with a disability and parents can borrow our devices too. So maybe you have one at school or in your clinic and you can't get it to a parent but the parent wants to try it. The parents can actually borrow our devices for 35 days. We pay shipping to and from. And so if you want to look at the items for loan, you just click here. On this page and so we're going to say what category since we're talking about vision let's look at vision and let's search items available. And you can see we've got a Braille label maker, magic voice tracker, Braille note taker. I do. We did. Magnifiers handheld talking calculators So when you're making this decisions, the whole point of the grant that we're funded by is to help you make educated decisions and do really good trials so that we're not wasting money on the wrong tools. Because we've got too many devices sitting on. So we'll end that with the commercial. So I just want to make sure you all know that that's available for anyone and we pay shipping to and from you just have to put it in the box put the label back on and fedex will come and pick it up and take it back to us. Now, forward. This is the information on the short term device loans and I will tell you, Miss Anna is a stickler and she will get that equipment back from. They got to meet Anna last month. And that's all I have. Yes. She's a fantastic person. So any questions about my program or the device loans or how that benefits you before I move on. Alright, so today the purpose of today's training is to provide an overview of symbols. I think people don't spend enough time really considering symbols and best practices for symbols. So we're going to provide an overview of what symbols are. We're gonna kind of discuss tactile and tangible symptoms. And then I'm gonna introduce you to Bliss Symbolics. Because I think they're gonna be a game changer for our population. But once again, they may not be, for everyone. So we're always thinking when you're thinking about symbols and I am a speech language pathologist, the first thing we're always thinking about is communication. And the reason we have symbols is because we want to give our students, every student, the opportunity to communicate. And communication is basically systems. There's not a one of you that communicates in any single way. We don't just talk. We talk. We gesture. We use body language. And sometimes when we approach students, I find that we minimize all those other domains because we want to focus on. One thing and we're just gonna focus on this symbol so you can't do any of your other, forms of communication. So we almost hold our students to a higher standard than their typical peer because if you ever go and observe a typical classroom and see all the behaviors going on to and then we almost restrict that with our kids. So I want people to start really thinking about the depth and breadth of communication. And we really want to maximize the potential for our students by not limiting them to just one communication system, but really looking at how we can emphasize that with gestures, how we can emphasize that with body language, with Theyial expressions, movement. Think about my grandkids who are like one and 2 now and when they walk into my house, they know exactly where the cookie jar is. So they're using proximity to get what they want without ever speaking. And we need to honor those kinds of communicative intent with all of our students. And we need to maximize on them. So when we're looking at communication, we're looking at. Communicative competence is our ultimate goal. We're looking at operational competence and that's if they have a device or a Braille machine. Can they turn the device on and off? Can they put it where they need to use it? Can they? They're using a PIN of paper, can they open the top of the PIN? So it's all those operational pieces that are part of communication. Functional competence would be does it do what it needs to do meaning does your symbol system or communication system have the vocabulary needed so that it's functional for that individual. So those are 2 very different things we need to consider. And then strategic confidence would be knowing what tool to use when so there might be sometimes when I'm at home at night that I can just point because mom understands me better pointing. But then there might be a time when I'm in a new environment and I need to use a device. Or a tool that somebody else can read. Like these have the words on him so and an unfamiliar communication partner. Is going to need something with the words if I'm not communicating, communicating orally. And then social confidence is. You know that all those things that we teach your typical child like. How to take turns, my turn, your turn. How to say, please and thank you. So all of those social pieces that we sometimes forget about that make our children more acceptable. The next thing I want to show is the communication bill of rights and there's a link to this in the handout which Donna's put in the chat and she might put that again because some of you have come in late. But if you go to this link, there's actually 15 total. But any student, no matter what their strengths and weaknesses are, I have one goal and that's independent communication. They have a right to pick their own friends. They have a right to request what they want to do or. Deny or, reject what they don't want to do. They have a right to. Pick out their own preferences, tell you what they like. And they have a choice just to make friends and, comment and share. And so we're thinking about all of those when we're developing a communication system. And we're working with these kids with complex need to require symbols. We still have to keep all of this in mind. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. They're still people first. So what are symbols? And people shortchange symbols. Symbolism is. Words. So I'm talking to you with sounds that are symbols and the symbols we are using are English. But if I were in, Egypt, I would be using Arabic or if I was in Russian, I would be using Russian. You would have a hold different sound system. So it's that spoken word is symbolism. Graphic, those are the pictures. So you can see we've got a word music. But this here is Mandarin and means music so they're different symbols. Those are graphic symbols. They're they're print. You've got sign language, which would be manual representation. And all of these. Shared. Tools, I wanna say tools. Represent ideas that we have. They represent how we feel. They represent objects that we want. Actions, things we want to do, people we want to be by, who we like, who we don't like, and something that we participated in. They tell us what we've done, where we're going, what we're going to do. And it's all symbolism. It's very complex. Why do we need symbols? Human interaction is characterized by symbolic communication. It's what we do. That's what differentiates us from any other animal. Is we have that means to communicate and it's multimodal. It's never just one. So that's what I want you all to keep thinking about. So we're gonna do a little activity right now and I'm gonna introduce you to 6 bliss symbols and I want you to take about 30 s to really look at these 6 symbols because we're going to come back to them later. So these are bliss symbols. So think about that. There. Quick shape, you've got man. Lady, happy. Sad home and animal. If I didn't tell you what those were and I just showed you those pictures first. You would not be able to label those 6 symbols because you have not been talked. So move forward. So I went the wrong way. Alright, chit chat. So any comments about what we've talked about in regards to symbols. In regards to what we've talked about with the symbols that you just saw. How abstract they are, what you think about your students who might be able to use them or might not be able to use them. Comments from the audience. Something maybe you haven't thought about before. Feel free to unmute and With my students over the years, I'm now doing early intervention, but it's important to know where what level they are in their symbolic. Communication, do they need a real object? Do they need real pictures? Can they move on to more abstract? Symbols like what you just showed. If you don't know where your student is, that is not really helping him if you give him something like what you just showed if they are not to that level yet. And Kerry, you just stole my whole presentation. No, it's perfect. That's exactly what I want you to be having conversations about. But the other piece that I really want to hit home is You also have to have a period of time. Sometimes we sell our kids short. And any like you weren't born, speaking, you weren't born. Writing you weren't born reading all of those were skills that you were taught. And so we also have to remember that our kids are coming to the table with. A different sensory system. More complicated systems. But they can still be taught. And we've done some work where we'll follow around how much opportunities in the classroom. Our kids that are young. Kerry and Just emerging into the classrooms, how much opportunity they get with literacy instruction. And compared to their typical peers and it is a lot less. So you've got the child who needs 10 times as much. But but they're getting a quarter because there's so many other things that they have to be dealing with. So I'm gonna move forward and I'm gonna show you another symbol system. This is called Spence and Spence was used in the seventys as a research tool. So go ahead, you've got man. Lady, happy. Sad. Phone and animal. So there's your next symbol set. Which one's right? Which one's wrong? We're not determining that right now because we don't have a client in front of us to make those decisions. I'm gonna go ahead and move forward. So in comparison, though, comparing those 2 symbol systems right now, what's your, what was your first gut instinct when you saw the second one versus the first one. Any thoughts? It's way more complicated. Too complicated. So you feel the second one was more complicated or the first one? The second one was more complicated. I'm not sure why you would use that one over regular. Print letters. I mean, they're They look virtually similar in a way. As far as. Being able to comprehend what the symbol is. Is it an A, a B, or whatever? Good observation. Alright, so now we're gonna talk about symbols and we're gonna kind of break it up into manual spoken visual tactile and tangible symbols. We're gonna kind of have that overview. So one of the things that's very important for everyone to understand is every symbol is arbitrary. So if you go back to that Mandarin symbol for music that I showed on that beginning, slide. If you would have seen that. It would not have made sense to you because you don't know Mandarin. Well, that's how our A's and B's and C's look to somebody who's speaking at Mandarin. So all symbols are arbitrary. In order to have successful use of any symbol, You must have, a sender and a receiver. So if Donna and I are going to use a symbol, we have to have that joint understanding of what that symbol means. And right now we're using oral language. So our symbolism is the English language. Those are our symbols written. It's oral. Words that we're speaking with. So Donna understands me. But if I lifted this up and didn't give her the word and she wasn't familiar with it. We don't have that understanding or that joint attention between the sender and the receiver. We don't have that shared meaning. And that's something that's overlooked. Many of our kids come to the table without that shared meaning and we assume they have it and when they fail at it it's because we haven't taken the time to teach them. It also requires shared knowledge, meaning I did this. Research activity with kids in a bilingual classroom and I took 20 third grade. Children in an ESL classroom here in Houston. The campus was 70% economically disadvantaged. But we couldn't figure out why these kids were struggling. And we gave them a test of very common vocabulary and it was broken up into categories. So the first words I showed them, I showed them pictures and they had to label things like a sink. Guess what they all call the sink? Awash. So when I showed them a scene, these kids from this bilingual class. 80% of these kids are more called in a wash. They did not call it distinct because you say go wash your hands. We don't say go to the sink and wash your hands. Over 80% of the kids in that classroom missed a bull because how many bowl the OWL how many bowls do we use. In the education setting. We have trays, we have spoons. But we don't use a bowl, a BOWL. They also didn't know what a shelf was. The bookshelf because you don't typically say go to the shelf and get a book. You say go over there and get a book. So these kids did not have a label for shelf. They labeled them all in Spanish perfectly. So if a child was to read a book and it said, The bow fell off the shelf and he put it in the seat. Even though this child could read. They've got the symbols. They don't have that shared experience. On naming or labeling those objects. You don't have those shared labels. Experiences with those tools. And so we're missing a step. So we've got to make sure that not only do we have a symbol that we both know what it means? But we've got a pair it to an environment, an object or an experience that we both share. So it's very complex process. When you start to think about it. And it takes time. It's more than requesting labeling and comprehending, but those are good places to start. So I just want you to think about the complexity of the whole system. So when you leave here, you're gonna start thinking about multimodal communication. Symbols are a tool. And we really got to refine those tools to meet the needs of the individual. I'm going to talk about that as we move forward. So the first symbol system that we don't want to rule out is verbal. And many of our kids with vision impairments have the potential for verbal speech, but maybe they're delayed because they're complex. So the alphabet is 26 letters. So there's 26 isolated symbols. That make up 44 sounds. So our symbol system is basically 44 sounds. That we then use to make up words that we combine to phrases that we combine to sentences. To have shared meeting. And it's only 26 letters of the alphabet that we do all of that with. But it's generative system that we're using. So that we're generative is really important. I've got an example here of, why we don't start our kids off on this graphic part of the symbols, just the the sounds. Think about these words here. You've got 26 letters in the alphabet and think about the word enough. And then think about the word woman, which people often say women, women like swimming, women. And then nation. So and using those sounds. What would that word GHOT I spell? Tricky. Think of what sand. Do you hear at the end of the word enough? Sounds like in half. Enough. Oh, there you go. So that would be F. And then in women, what sound do you hear? Yeah. And then in nation, what is the Ti make? So what would that spell? Fish? Yes. And you wonder why our kids who are struggling I haven't a hard time spelling. That's a really good example. So what are the pros and cons? We're not gonna answer this right now, but I want you to think about it. What are the pros and cons to verbal symbols? And that's your sounds. It's your phoneings, your morphines. It's those, those plural s's that we don't think about as symbols, but they are. And they're the first symbolic piece that that separate us from other animals. So those are simple. Now we're going to move forward. And the next form is to supplement that. So we never take away the verbal symbols. That's, the main form of communication paired with body language. And then we go to manual symbols. And the manual symbols are going to be your gestures. We're moving, I'm pointing. I'm going to move into close proximity. Your idiosyncratic signs, those are those signs that you often see when you have kids with complex needs. Who, they don't quite have the motor skills to make your signing exact English or your ASL. So they're called idiosyncratic signs. The problem with the idiosyncratic science is they're often only understood by very close communication partners and you don't get as many communication partners when using them. So I see a lot of moms doing early sign language with their kids signing with some of the little television shows. But when you watch the children, they're not doing a specific enough hand sign. That it is intelligible to another signer. So it's really. A very specific tool between a parent and a child typically for communication. So it limits their communication partners. And then you've got tactile signing that we use with our kids who are, deaf blind. And once again, the problem with this is how many of, if they go to a store, how many communication partners out there are going to be able to understand those tactile signing. So it's not a bad thing. But it might be something that they use with close communication partners, but we still have to open the door to communicate with other partners. So what are some of the pros and cons to manual symbols? I'm gonna move forward. And the next would be some of your visual symbols, your 2 dimensional symbols. So, orthography, your printed words. That kind of correlate with those oral symbols, verbal symbols that we first talked about. And then there's your, universal signs and or local signs, cultural signs, your stop signs, your bathroom signs. There's photographs. Can be used as symbols, line drawings, pictographs, and then you've got your commercial sets and then Braille and Braille can without the raise bumps could be a visual symbol system. I know many adults who are Braille readers, but they're not. Braille feelers. They don't feel them tactically. Many of you probably are that way. So what are the pros and cons to some of the 2 dimensional systems? And these are all questions we're asking when we're trying to figure out how we're going to maximize an individual's communication. Now, we are going to really talk about bliss symbols today. I'm gonna right now kind of give you a little. Soapbox about. Bliss versus board maker versus some of these others. So bliss symbols. We're, introduced. Through Shirley Mcnaughton up at a school called the Canadian it's a crippled children. I don't have the exact name, but it was back in 1970. And part of the reason she wanted the Bliss symbols is she wanted a universal school system. So that she would have more universal universality. For teachers because they had done a study in Iowa showing that when they had a school system that everyone was using, the kids made more progress. And that was the oral language project out of the University of Iowa in 1,965 to 1972 3. I think it went till 1,974 because what happened in 1,975 Everybody got to come to school and we lost some of those specialized programs because. Public school opened up for all children with disabilities in 1975. So these are some of the 2 dimensional systems, what are the pros and cons? About 2 dimensional systems. Next one is tactile symbols. And the list symbols that I'm going to introduce in a little bit are would be tactile symbols. But also tangible. They're kind of a cross between the 2. So your tactile symbols. Are typically those you see for kids with dual sensory impairment, your kids who are deaf blind. They often incorporate tangible features. But you have more systems in the tactile symbols versus your tangible systems which are more object based. There's typically raised line drawings or pitographs. And you typically have an incorporation of multiple symbol types when you're setting up systems with tactile symbols. They're often mounted and if they're not they should be. We do want to make sure that we're giving some consistency for the children and they're not dependent on the adult to give them what they want to say. So remember we, our ultimate goal is independent communication. One of the some of the pros and cons of those. And then tangible systems are the last symbol that kind of fall into these. And those are your concrete 3 dimensional symbols and objects that can be. Discriminated physically. And. Visually and tactically just through touching holding. And those are for those kids who really need that. That ability to hold something to make meaning of it. So those kids would be holding the actual mouse, the actual cup. The actual bowl. There we go. Pieces of object, pieces of fabric. And the idea behind some of these tangible systems is they're, they're typically for those kids who have, that need to reduce the cognitive load memory load or vision load. And we start off with some of these pieces, but the idea is that's not where we're going to stay when we're introducing these because our ultimate goal, I'm gonna back up here, is to get them to a universal communication system to maximize their communication partners. And the best form of that is going to be. Literacy, reading. Right, so now we're gonna chat. So with all of those simple systems. Just this isn't a right or wrong. But in thinking about all of those, which one do you think you mostly use? Do you consider all of those when you're starting to set up a program for an individual or if a child seems like they're doing very well. Are we thinking about expanding on these of symbols to maximize their literacy. Any thoughts on all of that? There's no wrong answer, by the way. It's aha moments, something that Maybe I'm thinking about something that I didn't think about. This is really your time to grow. Or ask a question. I think seems like if I remember you need to have a learning media assessment to know if they're tactile auditory. . For. I'm throwing a blank here. Tactile auditory or visual learner. Right. And they're actually starting to disprove some of that. Like, Like we're all tactile all auditory. And unless you're blind or, you're fully deaf. We're all auditory. So. That's why we wanna really start thinking about multimodal exposure. When we're providing systems because many of our kids actually need to be able to touch, fold, and move forward. But we do want the learning media assessment to move them forward into like print going into Braille or going into more of a graphic. Orthographic representation. Right, now I'm gonna give you all the test. So remember the symbols we showed you before. Let's see if you guys can guess. Which one is which? So let's start with the first. Everybody, anyone want to guess? Just write it in the chat real quick. There's no wrong answer. Well, there is a wrong answer on this one. Starting in the chat, let's have a fun little, let's keep your brain going. What do you think? Number one is? What is the word? For number one. Alright, your choices are man, lady, happy, sad, house, or animal. Let's go to number 2. So I would write 2. You know let's look at one through 12 and if there's any you think you know Go ahead and like if I knew 8 was house, cause that's pretty easy. I'm gonna in the chat, I'm gonna do 8. How? So guess, see how many you can guess in there. Yeah, one is animal, you're correct. 2 is sad. 7 is happy. 4 is actually. Lady. You guys are doing a great job. So. One is animal, 2 is sad, 3 is happy. For his lady, Faith's house. 6 is man. And on the bliss side. 7 is happy, 8 is house, 9 is animal, 10 is lady. 11 is man and 12 is sad. Which one makes more sense to you? Column one or column 2. This is Donna, column 2. Now. And it looks like that Britney said column 2 as well. Yeah, we got a lot of call too. So the reason, column one is harder is because that is actually a research system and it represents the same kind of sound letter system that we have with the English So you can see that you've got the same number of sound to letter correspondence like a Rebus and they use that for research because it takes away from the actual. Kids knowing the alphabet when they're doing research. So they're looking to see how kids kind of learn a language. And that's why that one's a little harder because the English language is harder to learn. And then the Bliss side are more representative of simple systems and we're going to talk about Bliss as we move forward. But that's kind of a fun activity. Get your brain thinking. So tactile symbol consideration. So think about these sets right here. So this one up here in the yellow is one you can buy on Pinterest. Those are 3D printed objects. The next one is one. That somebody made, and then this third one is actually a symbol system that David Primack used. To teach chimpanzees and bonobos how to read. And the chimps actually with very intense training. We're able to use all of these symbols and he could even write. Car on Apple and they could do prepositions with these symbols. So, he successfully with, very intense intervention was able to teach chimpanzees reading. Or language. With that then That kind of opened the door right about, 1,975 to really working with our students with complex needs because That's how we learned that our kids do have that potential to learn simple system. So it's pretty. Incredible research that we're founded on. So when you're considering, symbol systems, the problem with many of these right here is If you have a student like in Texas, we've got a lot of transient students and they move from my school to the next school. It would be like I'm gonna come back to this slide here, so I'm gonna go back one. No, not the wrong way. So think about it, it would be like I've just taught you the 26 letters in the alphabet. But guess what? You left my school and you went to, Florida and you're starting on a new school. And so now you're gonna have to learn a whole new symbol system. And you're throwing the baby out with water every time these kids move to a new location. So that reproducibility is going to be a huge consideration. So, how distinguishable are they? Can a child tactically discriminate between one and another? So if you look at this symbol, it has a heart. And you have this one which has a line. If you closed your eyes, I could teach you each of these very easily because they're easily discriminated, distinguishable between each other. How much time does it take you as a, as a service provider to make them. What materials are you using and how reproducible are they? How durable are they? We've got a lot of kids that are. Pretty aggressive. So are you going to be able to wash them, clean them, without having to remake them and every time you remake them, you can't find the exact same symbol. So you have to give it a slight variation, which means that child has to learn something new. How universal are they if my child moves to a new place? Can they take them with them and how culturally appropriate are they? Do the family members understand what the meaning is behind them? So what do we like the bliss symbols? Well, just like the, English language contains 26 letters, but 44 sounds. There's 100 right approximately 100 consistent symbols that you have to draw. For bliss symbols. And on the hand that you will have the, the link to, Both the Bliss tactic symbols and Volk Switch where you can get the files for these. The meaning is constructed by combining features. So if you look how this is a man or a woman or person. And by putting this one, it's first person. This heart is a emotions and if you saw that one we used earlier it was happy when the arrow went up and it was sad when the arrow went down. And so what they learned was it did take about 4 times longer than a Ribas to learn the Bliss symbols. But what they found is once the kids learned them, they could put them together and make their own words and it was a generative system so it gave them a lot more control over their environment. And those are things you have to weigh with your client because maybe you've got a client that's not gonna be able to do that. But we always want to be pushing to maximize what our kids can do. So they're generative. And you can construct new meanings by changing or adding 2 symbols together. Kind of like words. We did an article. Really kind of detailing some of the. Benefits to the 3D printed list symbolics or tactile symbols. And one of the biggest benefits is they're universal. So if you had a student that moved to Germany, guess what? They could print the same symbol in Germany. And they're actually using blue symbolics in European countries more than America because We kinda got. Taken away with. The sales reps who sold us board maker but those are just drawn pictures there's no systems involved so if you've got a child an emerging 3 year old that's fairly typically developing. They can. And understand that many of my kids with autism don't have a problem going between your board maker, your symbol sticks. But if you've got a child with complex tactile needs and you've worked really hard to teach them 3 or 4 symbols and you've worked really hard to teach them 3 or 4 symbols and they don't have that Are they gonna be able to duplicate that when they move somewhere else? Okay. And we had a question come in from Alex. They understand that Alex understands the concept, however, looking at these for students who are using tactile symbols. Many times they need to be able to feel different textures and everything seems very plastic. Can you elaborate on that? So you would be pairing. And once again, that's gonna go to the tangible. S, symbols versus the tactile symbols. And those are different levels that the kids are at. So you're gonna be moving the kids from those tangible send symbols into more of a tactile symbol system. And so that's going to be based on where your child is. This would be to me a step up from there, but I could very early on pair the 2 together. Just as when I'm reading to my granddaughter at 3 months of age and showing her print and books the other thing that these have is they've got really nice braille on the sides if you can see that. And so we've got the word on the front. So you've got communication partners that can communicate with the individual. You're exposing the student even if they're not going to be using Braille. You can still, we don't know that when they're little, where they're gonna go. And so you could do things like this is I and you can see there's the Braille for I. This is like and even my grandchildren can feel those bumps and they're not vision impaired and tell that they're different and you can do same in different long short, you can start getting some building some awareness early on to that Braille. Because one of the things that happens with many of our kids is they, don't get exposed to literacy tell. Sometimes 5, 6, 7, 8. It's really sad. So we can start exposing them to literacy much sooner. So it is it's a complex system. It does have to be and it's not for everyone. So this is a little guy that's in College Station. And the problem with these symbols for him, not that he couldn't feel him, they were too big for his little hands so we were able to through the threed printing cut down the symbols and he was able to use half the size. But you can see this is a little girl in California and she's able to use the complete sets and she really enjoys them. And I let my grandkids play with them. They think they're fun to stack. Sort without placing any demands on them. So. Let me go back to the blue symbols. I want to give a little more information. I'm not recommending necessarily the benefits to the Billy symbols and what we'd like to see is I'd like to see these as an option in almost every school. The benefits to these are you don't have to make them. They do have parts of speech so you can see that. Yeah, they do have a plastic peel. But these are for child that you would pair with other tactile substances. So you've got your not you've got parts of speech have different shapes at the top. And then. They've got. The symbols and then they've got the braille on the side and then they've got the word for the communication partner. I've made some sets where they're hanging and the child can reach up and kind of flip them and I'll put the word on the back so that because the communication partner in that situation would be behind the student. And you've got the ability to adapt these. And if anybody ever wanted to know how to do that through, the. The software, I can help you can set up a meeting with me and I can help you do that. So moving forward, bliss symbols are just something that we wanna start bringing people. We want to start bringing to your attention, but they're not, an end all. We want you to be thinking about that whole big picture. So considerations when you're choosing symbols would be Interests. You want to really think about the individuals preferences and abilities. And this is what Kerry kind of brought up earlier. You're going to be looking at the child's interest. Their age. But you don't wanna focus on the age as an ind. You wanna focus on it as a starting point and you want to be sensitive to where they're going and that they are going to have developmental changes. We don't want to, we don't want kids to get stuck. You wanna look at cause and effect where the kids are at. But that's something that can be taught. Once again, we don't want them stuck. We wanna look at their literacy level, but we want expectations after going to move forward. And that's why we put the grail on the side of the bliss symbols. We want to look at their experiences because we want to build language around their experiences. We want to look at their motor skills because that's gonna depend on how they're set up. And we want to look at their sensory system, their vision, their hearing, their tactile sensation. For the environment we want to look at. What are the needs? Do they need to be visible? Do we need to change colors? Or do they need to be waterproof? Do they need to be durable? Is it gonna be used in a dynamic group versus one to one? How portable are they? Who are their communication partners? And that's often, an area that's forgotten about. My ultimate goal is I want you out communicating with your classmates. I don't want you only able to communicate with a pair of professional and support staff. So we've got to have symbol systems that are engaging for all. And then, physical organization, we want to consider access. How are they going to access it? Are they pointing? Are they holding? Are they eye gazing? Are they scanning? And you just saw how we kind of looked at the size of the symbols is going to change based on the student and then organization and how you lay it out. Ultimately, I want to set up whereas the child is gonna be able to know where that symbol is if they're deaf blind. I don't wanna be the giver of that communication. I want them to be the giver. Nope, and I went ahead on that one didn't show it to you, but I already talked about that. So we are now at 3 54 and that was just kind of the big overview. I hope I didn't cause more confusion. But I am available, for communication for questions or follow up. But it's mostly to kind of get you thinking broader about the symbols and the communication systems that we're providing our kids. And then when I come next month, we're going to talk about choosing the right vocabulary and we'll expand a little bit more. On putting those into simple systems. Donna, we did it. Yeah, we did it. Thank you so much and we're looking forward to next month you coming back and teaching us how to pick vocabulary that's appropriate and using with our low tech mid tech and high tech. Technologies and cause we bring it all back to that technology and this has been a great example of How are you? Our lower tech technology to really help our kiddos. So thank you so much for joining us. Does anybody have, I know you have to run, but I give a couple of minutes. Does anybody have any questions before I leave? If you think of something later, I'm gonna throw my email in the chat. I have a question. I'm a speech English, but that was in Plano ISD. And I was just wondering when I, I work with preschoolers. So, you know, we always think about what, or I always think about what this looks like in the future for them. I'm actually using both symbols with the student right now. I saw your presentation at the low incidents disability conference in the summer time. So what is the end what an adult who's I guess fluent with this as their assistive technology and very proficient in it. What does it look like for them? Do they carry a binder around with all of their symbols? Are they? Exchanging symbols with people, are they putting them on top of the binder? Are they if they're not verbal, what is What is it look like for someone who is very proficient at using this? They're using them, they actually, they actually put them into some communication systems overseas in Europe. So the Bliss symbols are just coming back here in the United States. So we're gonna be taking more date and we're doing more research on that. In the, in the European countries and many other countries, Arabic countries that people are proficiently using the Bliss symbols, they actually put them on their communication systems. And there's way to put key guards where you can represent even if you have a child who's deaf line, there's ways to now do key guards where you can put this symbols underneath so that they can communicate to a non familiar partner. So it's really gonna that's You're talking about very complex kids, so there's not gonna be one way to do it. But the idea is I don't want to give it an individual 2 or 3 words. I want to give an individual a robust language. System that they can really build upon. And too often we're giving them systems and pulling the rug out every time. They go to a new setting every new school, every new, even from preschool to kindergarten. So, there's a lot, there, there is research on the blue symbols. They show that when the kids learn them, they actually maintain and use them a lot more. They almost lost bliss altogether around 1985 89 when a board maker came out with the computers because it was so much easier for therapists to use those symbols off the computers. And we took away that generative system. On some of these low tech systems because of that. Okay, thank you. And if you email me, let's see, we'll stop screen sharing. If you email me, I can give you some of the research behind that. To I've got a lot. And we have the. The handouts, in fact. On my link, all of the handouts will be posted and if you did not get the link to the handout, let me put that in the chat as well. As I'm talking to you here, I'll grab that. And there's email. And there's my email. So if you have if you wanted to set up a conversation later. And wanted to set up like a 30 min zoom in meeting. I can share some of the research and you can have a more in depth conversation because that's what my job is to help you understand. So this is an introduction, but we can always expand. Thank you, Shannon and Rachel. Awesome. Glad we could connect you too to get some information go in there. So if you want to go back and review anything that we've done today or that if you lose the link for the handouts, the they will be all posted on my website which you can reach by the link in the chat the QR code that's on the screen right now or in any of your previous T time handouts. Coming up next week, we have Stacy Chambers coming in to talk about when and how to incorporate switches and active learning. We have Katie King coming in on the sixteenth to do connections and active learning, academic transition, and ECC concepts. The 20 third, we will have no session. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. And so we're gonna have no session that week. And our month's going to be rounded out with Hillary Keys coming in talking about how to make and use. Activ learning tech. In December, Shannon is going to come back and let's talk about vocabulary. So join us back again. So Rachel, maybe you'll get some more information on that. On that session. Anita is going to come back and visit us about AT and music and then Stephanie is going to wrap out our year with an APH update. And the ever wanted code. 8 3 1. 8, 8, 5 is your code. You will receive an email to do the evaluation where you will be prompted to put in our closing code which is 8 3 1 8 8 5. And If you follow the QR code on this screen or the link that's in your handouts. And we have not discussed something that is a burning topic for you. Check out that QR code or link in the handouts and let us know what you want to discuss in future tech T times Everybody have a wonderful rest of your week and a great weekend and we will see you next week.