AMANDA HYNAN FINAL THESIS PDF

The representational system explains the way that language is represented within
different AAC modes, for example in written form, symbols or photographs. For
people who may have limited exposure to literacy there will be significant
implications for how they can engage with an online environment.
Representational systems on high-tech VOCA devices require management strategies
to address the formulation, storage and retrieval of messages (Beukelman & Mirenda,
2005). Literate individuals may create messages on a letter-by-letter or word-by-word
basis or retrieve complete sentences. Non-literate individuals can use symbols and
there are many types of symbolised vocabularies available. Symbols are described at
one end of the scale as transparent (easily guessed) and at the other end as opaque
(abstract). Light and McNaughton (2012) discuss the difficulties of representing
vocabulary and language concepts graphically and how there is no empirical basis for
many of the systems available which are often based on ideas of representation from
the symbol developers.
Developmental stage and individual skills in areas such as attention, language and
literacy impact on the type of representational system chosen. People with complex
communication needs often face challenges in areas such as literacy (Smith, 1992;
Browning 2002) and language domains (Sturm & Clendon, 2004). Brekke and von
Tetzchner (2003) describe how language is created through the shared
“communicative activities of the members of a culture” (p. 176)
and discuss how the developmental pathways for achieving proficiency are different
for hearing children who lack the motor skills to use natural speech. One pathway is
for children to use pictographic representations that gradually become more complex
with the goal of achieving orthographic writing. They discuss how this approach
requires language to be taught in a formal way via collaboration between a
professional (who does not require a graphic system personally) and a child (who may
become more skilled with the graphic system than the professional) to teach/learn the
graphic system. It is important to note these issues in order to appreciate the diverse
profiles of the participants within the current study (section 3.5.4.) who had differing
types of language representation and language generation.
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