A nonvocal system for teaching retarded children to read and write.

This study investigated the development of nonvocal teaching of reading and writing in severely retarded children. Fourteen subjects were selected who demonstrated limited communication skills, and were randomly placed into two groups. Group A received training procedures utilizing abstract plastic symbols which were arbitrarily assigned to represent specific words. The training program was divided into three phases. Phase I consisted of training left to right sequencing of four color--coded forms; Phase II consisted of training of matching symbols to stimulus pictures; and Phase III consisted of training of fading from symbols to printed words. The subjects completing this training program demonstrated the ability to learn selected reading and writing skills, i.e., they learned to sequence an article, subject noun, auxiliary verb, and verb. They also demonstrated functional semantic comprehension of five nouns and five verbs. Thirteen subjects finished the communication training program in less than four months with a mean training of 7 hours and 55 minutes. This is approximately 2 hours of training a month per subject to learn these skills. The data showed that Group B (rebuses) required fewer trials than Group A (abstract symbols) to meet criterion for Phase II, matching symbols to stimulus pictures. This suggests that Group B subjects may have had a meaningful association for the rebus signs which generalized to stimulus pictures. Group A (abstract symbols) required fewer trials than Group B (rebuse) to meet criterion for Phase 111, matching printed words to stimulus pictures. This indicates that perhaps Group A's training with abstract symbols positively affected learning to read printed words. The success of the visual nonvocal treatment program with the severely retarded is encouraging. Indeed, this is a different and viable approach in teaching communication skills (reading and writing) to the retarded.