Symbolized Stories-an AAC Strategy for Language Expansion

CSHA March 23, 2002
Judy Henderson, M.A. CCC
Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital @ Stanford
650-237-9222

Why Symbolized Stories?
Symbolized Stories are empowering and can provide opportunities for language skill development during emergent literacy development. Studies have demonstrated that symbolized stories heighten the interest in reading of kindergarten children without severe speech and motor disabilities. For children with apraxia, the symbolized stories provide a ‘pacing’ technique that enhances intelligibility. Children who have severe expressive language disabilities do not have as many opportunities to practice verbal utterances as their able-speaking peers do. Symbolized stories can create a common base for children and give an importance and value to literacy and increase participation in the mainstreamed classroom setting. Symbolized stories can also be used diagnostically to determine what sentence construction children are using.

Types of books:

Fit the books to the needs and abilities of the student
Repeated lines for anticipation and predictability
*Clear visual presentation to aid children with visual processing issues
Rhyming words to build phonemic awareness
*Target the structure of utterances – N+V, N+V+O, etc to match the child
Target specific sounds that can be used for phonemic awareness.
Silly stories can be used to motivate children and their peers
Choose books that reflect a specific part of speech (verbs) and color-code
“Let’s read this page..”

Expansion activities:

Make several symbolized books matching the language level of the children in a class, color Xerox on heavy paper and have the children check them out to read at home to parent as ‘homework’
Teach parents about symbolized reading during a back-to-school night
Use photos in a book and write a symbol sentence about the picture
Make overlays for communication devices to answer questions about the story or to formulate a ‘sentence’ sequence.
Record the repeated line on a single switch.
Have target students ‘read’ their books to peers or older buddies
‘Read’ symbol sequences used for other activities (boy+push+car) and then act out the sequences.
If there are calendars; incorporate the same grammatical structure.
Remember that reading leads to writing and choosing words to put in a sentence for a journal, a list or write your own story.
Have several therapists/teachers make books, make multiple copies and share

Techniques:

Support the hand in the beginning and teach the left-to-right sequence of sentence reading
Read exactly what the child points to
Ask ‘who’, ‘is doing’ ‘what’ questions
Model for the classroom teacher and aides
As the SLP, identify the language sequence for each page in the story and have an aide, parent or teacher make the sentence strips.
Think in terms of a sequence of books that have different expressive language sequences
Use computer software that sequences icons on the screen as they are selected

Software Examples for Writing Symbols
“Boardmaker”, “Speaking Dynamically Pro” and “Writing with Symbols” Mayer-Johnson Co. (800) 588-4548; “Clicker 4”, Crick Software (866) 332-7425; “Picture-It”, Don Johnston (800) 999-4660, as well as Communication Devices with Dynamic displays.

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This document was last modified by KHT: May 8, 2003 Monday, 12-May-2003 17:29:24 PDT Copyright © 2003, Stanford University School of Medicine. All rights reserved.