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Abstract
It is widely assumed that pairing graphic symbols with text will support text comprehension. This has led to the practice of coupling text with graphic symbols to make it more accessible and understandable. Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence to support this assumption or practice. The current study investigated the use of single graphic symbols to convey the meaning of the 15 statements that comprise the Communication Bill of Rights. Fifty-two speech-language pathology graduate students that were enrolled in a graduate-level augmentative and alternative communication course participated. They were asked to determine the right conveyed by each of 15 graphic symbols in an open-ended task, and then to match the symbols to the corresponding statements in a multiple-choice task. Participants had limited success with both tasks regardless of year in school or previous experience with graphic symbols. Implications for the use of graphic symbols to support text comprehension are discussed.
Keywords: graphic symbols, assistive technology, literacy, symbol supported text.
Introduction
Decades of research have demonstrated that people with severe disabilities demonstrate significant difficulty learning to read (e.g., Conners, 2003; Erickson & Geist, 2016). School-aged students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have low levels of reading achievement and take longer to make gains in reading than their peers without disabilities (Allor et al., 2014). As adults, individuals with IDD continue to struggle to read words and comprehend text (Jones et al., 2006). As a result, individuals with IDD often find it difficult if not impossible to access text (Hurtado et al., 2014). To address this challenge, the recommendation is often made to add pictures, pictograms, or graphic symbols to the text (e.g., Nomura et al., 2010; Office for Disability Issues, 2018). Individual pictures, pictograms, or graphic symbols can be selected to represent the meaning of an entire sentence, key ideas in a sentence, or all of the meaning and grammatical information in a sentence (Poncelas & Murphy, 2007). Unfortunately, there is little empirical support for any of these uses of pictures, pictograms, or graphic symbols to support text comprehension (Erickson et al., 2010; Hurtado et al., 2014). The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of individual graphic symbols to represent the meaning of each statement from the Communication Bill of...