Transparency of three communication symbol systems.

This investigation studied the transparency or guessability of communication symbols from three widely used systems-Blissymbols, Picsyms, and Rebus. Symbol transparency was assessed across four age groups through a forced-choice identification task which contained Word, Phrase, and Sentence subtests. Significant differences were found in both Word subtest and Total test scores for the variables of symbol system and chronological age. Subjects across all age groups performed similarly in response to the Picsyms and Rebus symbol items but significantly more poorly when identifying Blissymbols. In addition, there appeared to be a developmental progression for the Picsym and Rebus symbol tests, but the same trend did not emerge for the Blissymbol test. The feature of symbol transparency, as measured through a forced-choice identification task, discriminated among symbol systems. Significantly fewer symbols from the Bliss system were found to be transparent when compared with Picsym and Rebus systems.

A communicative interaction analysis system for language-disordered children.

Nine language-disordered children were videotaped in counterbalanced dyads (pairs) during a directed play session. A communicative analysis system was used in which communicative interactions were scored for each dyad, then classified as either successful or unsuccessful. Subject dyads varied considerably in both interaction measures. More importantly, some subjects appeared to facilitate communicative interactions while others seemed to impede interactions. The percent of successful interactions correlated with three of four receptive and expressive language measures obtained, whereas number of interactions did not correlate significantly with any ot these measures. The results suggest that communicative interaction analysis is a reliable and potentially useful procedure to aid in understanding language-disordered children.