Signs Workshop: The Importance of Natural Gestures in the Promotion of Early Communication Skills of Children with Developmental Disabilities
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Q2. What are the future works in "Signs workshop: the importance of natural gestures in the promotion of early communication skills of children with developmental disabilities" ?
By widely distributing this multimedia application, it is intended to make a positive contribution to the consolidation of knowledge on natural human signs within the context of Portuguese culture and provide to the education community a set of extended natural gestures, adequate to the development characteristics of Portuguese children with development disabilities.
Q3. What was the challenge of the communication design?
The challenge of providing adequate responses to specific social, technological and communicative conditions, combined with the need to create a user-friendly interface with a fast learning rate, lead to the specification of three key concepts which sustain the communication design: space, lightness and order.
Q4. What is the main feature of simultaneous signalling and speech?
Another significant feature of simultaneous signalling and speech is the fact that parents assure eye contact with the child while communicating with them.
Q5. What languages were used to create the sign?
Fulfilling the intention of integrating descriptive audio cuts of the signs, the team recorded and edited the 184 signs in the CD-ROM’s three available languages: Portuguese, English and Spanish.
Q6. What is the purpose of the Signs Workshop CD-ROM?
By widely distributing this multimedia application, it is intended to make a positive contribution to the consolidation of knowledge on natural human signs within the context of Portuguese culture and provide to the education community a set of extended natural gestures, adequate to the development characteristics of Portuguese children with development disabilities.
Q7. What is the purpose of the research?
The research made by the APPT21/Diferenças team, with the objective of standardizing the signs to include in the CD-ROM, was gathered among Portuguese population (continent and islands) with diagnosed Down Syndrome, who, in an early age, uses or has used, at some point, Total Communication (simultaneous use of natural gestures and speech).
Q8. What are the signs used in the APPT21/Diferenças project?
The Sign Communication Systems or Sign Language Systems, when organized in symbolic or coded signs, are examples of the Augmented Communication Systems frequently used [12].
Q9. How does he learn to perform the natural gestures?
He stays at home with his mother, so the 20 gestures that are now part of his repertoire are used with the closer family, especially with his 4 years old sister who motivates and helps him to perform the natural gestures.
Q10. What was the first step in the development of the prototype?
Simultaneous to the prototype creation, the team started on the communication design studies: colour schemes, symbols/icons and graphic interfaces.
Q11. What is the purpose of the Signs Workshop?
After the Signs Workshop CD-ROM development, many children with developmental disabilities have started using it, within the context of their personalized Early Intervention Programmes.
Q12. What are the main objectives of the Signs Workshop CD-ROM?
Within this framework, the main objectives of the Signs Workshop CD-ROM are: to promote the development of language and communication skills, at the pre-verbal stage; to enable learning and access to different natural gestures, commonly used in the Portuguese day to day culture; to provide, for each gesture, a set of information in several formats (text, sound, image, video), enabling various and personalized searches.
Q13. What is the main objective of the Signs Workshop CD-ROM?
it is intended to help in the creation of support strategies in order to promote the early stage of sign utilization, understood as a critical link which ensures the transition from the pre-verbal communication stage to the spoken language stage [1].
Q14. What was the purpose of the design?
The design of the sign’s graphic representations (in different image sequences) was made from a graphic simplification and systematization of the human figure (figure 4).
Q15. What are the activities and strategies that stimulate communication development?
Several activities and strategies that stimulate communication development are established for each weakly session and the caregivers are taught how and when to perform the gestures, so that they can use them effectively.
Q16. What was the role of the prototype?
This prototype assumed a crucial role for the analysis, discussion and correct definition of the functional objectives of the CD-ROM.