Training functional communication board use: a pragmatic approach

Abstract

A modified A-B design was used to train two nonspeaking physically handicapped children to increase the frequency with which they initiated requests for objects using their communication boards. This communicative intent was trained using highly motivating toy objects and corresponding vocabulary symbols. Following training, the children generalized their use of this intent to additional untrained vocabulary symbols. Generalization also occurred across listeners. While spontaneous initiated requests for objects increased, there was no generalization to other communicative initiation skills. Implications of these findings to the design of treatment programs for nonspeaking children are discussed.