Yet again, Neil was needing to share some symbols materials with staff in a school, but, alas, the symbols software wasn’t available on the only computer he had access to.
Moreover, the school didn’t have that software, so, once the symbols document could eventually be opened, it would have to be shared as a pdf.
And, of course the teachers weren’t going to be able to edit that. So, when the time would come for the document to be updated, they’d either ask Neil again, or, more likely, just not do it. And the child would have to make do with a less than ideal communication board … or nothing at all.
It was around about that time we started building the symboliser for PowerPoint.
It started as an application to make symbols grids in PowerPoint, with the main goal being to make communication grids.
However, it quickly became apparent that there was a much greater area of need: adding symbols to text generally in office documents.
We know that visuals, and particularly picture communication symbols, can make a huge difference to children and young people with speech, language, and communication needs.
The symbols enable students with communication differences to follow much more of a lesson than they would otherwise be able to. They help to reduce their isolation.
Speech and language therapists relentlessly advise teachers to use visuals and symbols.
But, it’s often a challenge for teachers to follow this advice effectively. Why?
Simply adding a picture, or set of pictures, is rarely sufficient to improve these students’ understanding. It’s true that they will help with setting the context, and they do improve engagement by helping to make the lesson come alive. But, what they often don’t do is help clarify the specifics of the learning the teacher is trying to get over.
What’s the difference with communication symbols?
Picture communication symbols are designed to represent specific concepts or meanings. They are often much better at supporting – visually – the ideas the teacher wants to get over. Students themselves have told us how they help them to remember. And we have seen the confidence of students increase because of the improved understanding a teacher’s use of symbols has given them.
What is the issue with using symbols?
Communication symbols aren’t just any old pictures you can find on the internet that might represent a thing or an idea. They are carefully constructed images which form part of a consistent set, with a lot of thought as to how well they represent something.
Even if you could find the appropriate images on the internet, copying and pasting them into your document can be a big faff. And every time you want to change or move the text, you have to mess around re-aligning all of the images.
We put together the PowerPoint symboliser to make this process easy. Find the words you want to add symbols to, click on a button, and the symbols appear – appropriately lined up with the text. Need to add some text, or move something around? No problem. Click in your text and choose “Tidy Text” and the symbols end up back where they should be.
Less is more
Rather than automatically adding symbols to all words (as traditional symbols software has done), the Commtap PowerPoint symboliser allows you to write the text first, and then decide afterwards which words to add symbols to.
Why is this a good thing?
This encourages people to think about what actually is the most important information they need to get over. If there is just one thing I want everyone to understand what is it?
Then you would choose a small (yes, small) number of key words, and you would add symbols to these.
This stops there being a forest of symbols – which would increase confusion not decrease it – and allows students to focus on what is most important – the concepts supported with symbols.
Our key ambition is for students with speech, language, and communication needs to feel more included in lessons. We think that using symbols can have a big role in this. Our symbolising software along with our support – the SymbolGo package – is designed to help with this.
Would you like to join us in our symbols journey to improve the experience of children and young people with communication differences?
Join a webinar to find out more about SymbolGo