Talk:Augmentative and alternative communication/Archive 2

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Resolved issues and resolved discussion

Resolved issues Citation needed: "Some users understand the line drawings better than detailed colorful pictures, while others prefer the reverse." Silverman references the "while others prefer the reverse." part of this, but not the first, if we don't find a reference in the next couple of days I can rewrite the sentance and reference. Failedwizard (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC) I reworded with silverman reference, would like someone to double check before marked off... Failedwizard (talk) 07:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Looks great to me, thanks! – Quadell (talk) 12:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Citation needed: "[Other picture-based symbol sets], such as Blissymbols, are full ideographic languages." A source was provided for the consensus wording. – Quadell (talk) 19:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC) "Anderson" sources "Some high-tech AAC aids allow a user to record his or her own voice while the person is still able to do so, for use once speech ability has begun to deteriorate." Problem: It's a personal site, though it's a fair review of high-tech AAC aids out there. It faithfully reports that many AAC aids do allow this. But on FAC, they could argue it doesn't pass WP:RS. I suppose I could link to the individual specsheets and press releases of various companies instead, but it's useful to have it in a single page, and I don't think anyone would doubt the information she provides. I say we keep this as is. Replaced. – Quadell (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC) "Beukelman (1985)" is a 2nd source for "Dysarthria is the most common communication problem in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS); significant difficulties with speech and intelligibility are uncommon." Problem: It's from 1985, 26 years ago. But it's not info that has changed in that time. I say we keep it. Consensus is to use this source. "Daniloff" sources "Manually coded languages, in particular are less transparent in meaning than gestural codes and require more fine-motor coordination to execute." Problem: It's from 1983. I could replace it with another B&M ref if I wanted, but it's nice to have a real study. And I don't think the conclusion is controversial or time-sensitive. Again, I say we keep this. Consensus is to use this source. Fager et al., "Traumatic Brain Injury" chapter, from "Augmentative Communication Strategies for Adults with Acute or Chronic Medical Conditions". This is a book references with chapter names given, but not page numbers. The chapter starts on page 131, but I can't get page numbers for the cites. Should we just replace the cite with a better source on TBI? Or should I get it out of the library? – Quadell (talk) 14:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Replaced with more accessible resource. – Quadell (talk) 18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Citation needed: "Tactile/tangible symbols can be used on low or high tech displays and switches." I've never seen a high-tech device with Braille. Should this just be removed? – Quadell (talk) 14:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Me neither, but tactile symbols aren't just braille. I could certainly imagine Charity Rowland type tactile symbols on something like a go talk or something. I think the whole section needs a bit of work, frankly. Poule (talk) 14:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC) I also can see it happening, and I've seen kids have a choice between the 'big red switch' and the 'fluffy switch'. A bit of work would be great (and I'd love to find a reference that talks about it in detail) but even if we find a reference for the sentance as it is, at best it is a special case of the sentance just above it. I'd vote to drop it. Failedwizard (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Fine by me. Feel free to put it back in if we find a cite and find it to be useful info. – Quadell (talk) 12:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Additional problem: Many B&M cites give page numbers in the range of 435-600. These are all in chapters written by other authors, and should be sourced to those chapter-authors instead. fixed. – Quadell (talk) 14:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Also, we really shouldn't have citations in the lede. The lede isn't supposed to give any new information, but merely summarizes the various sections, and claims should be referenced in the body instead. Done. – Quadell (talk) 15:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Citation needed: "The benefits of gestures and pantomime are that they are always available to the user, usually understood by the educated listener, and are efficient means of communicating." Aha! "A Proposed Augmentative and Alternative Communication Model" (Lloyd, Quist, and Windsor) says "With regard to symbols (excepting gestures or pantomime which are highly guessable and may, at least partially, be accurately interpreted by the receiver not possessing special training), most of the unaided symbols require specific learning by the receiver to effect communication." Looks like a winner. I added it. – Quadell (talk) 12:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Page numbers needed for: "Augmentative Communication in Practice: An Introduction", Cafiero, "Garret & Lasker" chapter, "Angelo" chapter, "Jans & Clark", "Mathy" chapter, "Duffy" book, "Glennen" chapters, "Hazel" chapter. Done. The Boser source is pretty weak. Surely we can find something better to source "Braille is further an example of a tactile/tangible reading and writing system." Done Failedwizard (talk) 17:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC) There are conflicting page numbers for Weitz et al. in the footnote and in the reference. Which, if either, is correct? Fixed - the footnote was correct, the reference was the page numbers for the Angelo Chapter Failedwizard (talk) 22:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Misc problems with sources: "Reichert Hoge & Newsome", "Burns", "Church & Glennen", "Romski & Sevcik", "Paul" Removed or replaced. "Beukelman & Mirenda" sources many statements throughout. Problem: Beukelman & Mirenda are the editors of the textbook, and are also the authors of chapters 1-12, 14, and 19. Different authors wrote chapters 13 and 15-18. Sometimes we sourced by simply saying "Beukelman & Mirenda, pp. 444-445.", but other times we source it by saying "Garret & Lasker" (which refers to a specific chapter in B&M). I'm not sure the best way to deal with this. Any ideas? Should the publisher/ISBN/etc. be listed each time? Standardized, per discussion below. – Quadell (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC) "Angelo", "Glennen", and "Weitz et al." Similarly to B&M, "The handbook of augmentative and alternative communication" has editors for the entire book, and separate authors for the various chapters. In this case, we have the book listed 3 times in the References, separately, under each author used. Is this correct? See also "Hazel" (chapter) vs. "Carroll-Few & Cockerill" (book). See also "Augmentative Communication in Practice: An Introduction", listed (and linked) three times under 3 chapter-authors. Note also the difference between the way Schlosser's "The efficacy of augmentative and alternative communication" (2003) is cited as a book, and as Schlosser & Lloyd's "Chapter 16" in that book. Standardized, per same discussion. – Quadell (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Comments Hi, I am having problems with my new computer which I need to clear up before I do any major work, but quickly... yes, let's get rid of the citations in the lede... this remove some of the unreliable source problems. I agree that the chapters not by B and M should be cited to their correct authors. I'm not too worried about older sources, especially for non controversial info but if we can support it with something else so much the better. By the same token, I think if we can switch or support by peer-reviewed journal articles would be a very good idea. I agree that we have to get the page numbers for the books. I note that some of these are at least partly available on googlebooks and Amazon, which might save a trip to the library, which I can certainly do if need be. Quadell, I find the referencing system used here very difficult to understand and work with. Would you mind if I simply put the information on citations here and you put it into the article? You seem to be a whizz at this stuff and it takes me ages to do. --Poule (talk) 21:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Yes, absolutely. – Quadell (talk) 21:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC) That's great. Thanks very much. --Poule (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Here goes: the first citation to Cafiero comes from p 8; I can't find in Cafiero anything to directly support the second statement, so the citation needs to be removed. We should probably check the other ref too.Poule (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC) I fixed Cafiero, though I didn't check the other source. I removed cites from the lede. – Quadell (talk) 22:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Okay I'll check it later when I do my read through.--Poule (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC) I'm going to replace Anderson. You don't need to do recordings on the devices themselves, and in fact in Canada it would very unusual to do so. So I am going to replace it with a more general comment about voice banking, referenced to this journal article [1]. --Poule (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Great find! I've added that ref. – Quadell (talk) 23:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Beukelman et al. 1985 it appears to be the latest review article on the topic, so I say leave it.Poule (talk) 23:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Daniloff is pretty much the last research into that specific area, so I think is okay. I've added B and M too. Poule (talk) 23:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC) I also just checked the Abudarham & Hurd in that section. For some reason the book doesn't seem to be in the reference list though I see Failed Wizard added it. FW, would you mind quoting the part of that book that supports the sentence about signing evaluation? I can't find it on p. 201-2, and sadly Amazon doesn't let me see p. 200 or 203; it seems a bit unlikely that people would do an fine motor assessment mainly to choose between sign systems, rather than whether to go the signing route at all. Also the author needs to be given as Gill Williams in a chapter called Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Poule (talk) 00:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I also cannot see the Abudarham book, but I found a good source for the assertion: Mirenda, P. (2003). "Toward Functional Augmentative and Alternative Communication for Students with Autism: Manual Signs, Graphic Symbols, and Voice Output Communication Aids". Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 34 (3): 203. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2003/017). This states: "In addition, not all children with autism perform equally well with regard to manual sign learning, and one variable that appears to be related to outcome is fine motor ability.... With regard to manual signing in particular, Seal and Bonvillian (1997) found that manual sign vocabulary size and the accuracy of sign formation were both highly correlated with measures of apraxia and fine motor age in 14 students with autism and severe intellectual disabilities." We could use this source instead, if the Abudarham proves weak. – Quadell (talk) 01:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Wow! Clearly Friday night is wiki night... would have been online had I known... Fixed the Abudarham link bug (was case-sensitivity issue, but still need to put it in the right alphabetical order) *blush* the reference should be 199, and 202, 199 includes a table on operational skills, which I can scan and email if people like and quotes like "motor assessment should concentrate on the client's ability to produce specific hand shapes and movements" and 202 includes the short general text around choosing an AAC system and judging the potential of signing. Just to address the query on "it seems a bit unlikely that people would do an fine motor assessment mainly to choose between sign systems, rather than whether to go the signing route at all." I certainly aggree with the point, but my understanding is that the text says something slightly different - my reading of the phrase "The user's ability to produce specific handshapes and movements is generally considered before a particular signing system is implemented because formal gesture and sign systems require adequate memory and motor skills to communicate effectively.[14]" is that the assessment is done before implementing *any* system, not changing between them. But I can certainly reword for clarity if you think that might help... Also systems like Makaton are often used where (and I apologise for straying slightly into OR here, but I have to go in a minute and can't find a handy source, thought I think it should go into the article at some point) the cognitive and motor skills are assessed to be too low for another type of sign language. There is a bit that is worrying me slightly - I don't have a copy of Daniloff so it would be great if someone who does could check - Up until Yesterday Daniloff referenced the sentance "Manually coded languages, in particular are less transparent in meaning than gestural codes and require more fine-motor coordination to execute" but now Daniloff references the sentance "Sign languages require more fine-motor coordination and are less transparent in meaning than gestural codes such as Amer-Ind". Given that Amer-Ind appears to be a manually coded language, these two sentances appear contricit each other somewhat. If someone could give the text that supports it that would be great (my own preference is to drop the sentance and the reference entirely, but I bow to consensus). Also I think the current one is probably correct because of this [2] abstract, but would be nice to double check. Also I think that the idea of replacing Anderson with the voice bank link is very sensible - it's pretty rare over here as well, but there are some news reports that can be dug out if we want to expand on the concept. And just before I run off - my personal preference is to not credit individual chapters in books, because I belive it makes it harder to find individual references , but I can bow to concensus - is there are halfway house? could we do something odd like have a second level bulleted list in the references so that chapters are easy to locate? I can knock up a draft if people are interested to see how this might look? Failedwizard (talk) 09:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Working backwards. I'm pretty sure we don't have a choice about citing the individual chapters where the author is different. See WP:REF and even the general academic principle of say it where you got it and correct attribution. Sign languages vs gestural codes. I've looked at Williams in Abudarham p. 199-203, and as you say it is talking about assessing different aspects of functions (motor, sensory, environment) etc to chose "a system" (ie signing vs pictures, high tech, low tech), not about selecting a specific signing/gesture system, which what the sentence implies (to me at least), with the word "particular". I am going to tweak it to clear up the confusion. I take your point about Makaton, but think it would be going into too much detail. re Daniloff et al issue, Amer-Ind is a gestural/signal code, not a manually coded language. I have access to the original articles, but here the abstract of the Daniloff article cited [3] to look at. Also it is confirmed on p. 43 of B and M. All to say, I agree this sentence about transparency etc is fine. Quaddell, can you add the reference FW found [4] too? It is an excellent addition and on point. --Poule (talk) 12:50, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Done, I think. – Quadell (talk) 13:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks Quadell, also, I think your Miranda reference is great, and I think should be added too. I'll mark where in the text with hidden notes. This article [5] should be added too. I've rewritten these sentences to be closer to the sources, though have been hit by an edit conflict which I will try to fix in a minute. I've actually proposed ditching Abudarham, because it is probably not the best source (a rather general article in a book mostly about something else) and given that we have journal articles making the same point. --Poule (talk) 13:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Done and done. – Quadell (talk) 13:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Another thing that I am trying to bear in mind is that this musn't be written as a "how to" article. That's hard because most of the sources are written to prepare/assist professionals in their clinical work. That's why I took out the part about needing to assess, and instead focussed on the facts... adequate fine motor etc skills are needed. I think there are other places where this needs to be tweaked. Poule (talk) 13:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I know the book Reichert Hoge & Newsome wrote, and it is not the best source; I am going to mark it for replacement. I don't have Duffy, Burns, Church & Glennen, or Romski and Sevik and can't access them electronically, but will work on the Paul ones. So it is either a trip to the library or finding alternatives which I don't think would be very difficult for most of them, and probably desirable. To be honest I think we should aim to the same for anything sourced to "Augmentative Communication in Practice: An Introduction". It is incredibly good stuff, but vulnerable to accusations of being self-published. --Poule (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC) On second thoughts, I think we should replace Paul too. It is a very general text, and there are good review articles e.g. [6][7] out there, which will be must stronger references for this stuff about autism. Poule (talk) 16:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I just fixed one of the new citation needed tags - but found the info "Symbols can be strictly visual when located on boards or screen displays or they can be tactile such as with the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) With this system, the pictures are on cards for the user to move around to form a message." a bit odd - it appears to suggest that symbols are tactile if you can touch them - is anyone familar enought with PECS to know if one can tell the cards appart by touch? No, they aren't tactile in that way... more than PECS uses a more tactile approach in that the person using it has to give a card to the comm. partner as a request, or as it says, put separate cards in order to make sentences. --Poule (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Cool, in that case my inclination is to lose the sentance pair - they are unreferenced, and I think that rewording would just end up replicing the hazel reference below, what do you think? Failedwizard (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC) On an important sourcing related topic. In case any of you haven't read this, there is a link to WP:MEDRS, which is about sourcing for medically related topics. While I suppose one could argue that this article is not really "medical", some parts of it definitely are, and I think it would behoove us to think carefully about what we have to learn from this resource for this article. In particular, they promote the use of recent review articles from peer-review journals, and textbooks destined for professionals and graduate students. As a result, I have some concerns about some of the sources used in the article, which are more lower level general texts about speech and language disorders, written by non-AAC specialists. This is the reason that I removed some references Rhea Paul's book, and why I don't think we should be using Gilliam either. I have similar concerns, though to a lesser extent, about the chapter in the Abudarham book, as I explained above. But if we do use this one, it needs to be correctly cited to Gill Williams, since she is the author. There may be other references that we should strive to upgrade. --Poule (talk) 13:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC) I think medical or not is an interesting conversation in it's own right - personally I think the topic itself is not, but this article strays into the field. I think the best policy might to be to insist on medical references for medical facts (mostly I think in 'Specific groups of AAC users') and have normal wikipedia guidelines for social, engineering, and historical facts - I've recited the Abudarham reference to Gill Williams and I'd like it to stay - Gill Williams is a professional in speech and language thearpy and the book is designed for professionals in that area (and, to be fair, undergraduates as well) so it meets even the medical criteria. :) Failedwizard (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

All identified sourcing problems have now been resolved. Which is not to say that it's perfect--more improvements are always welcome--but the identified weaknesses have all been resolved. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Device implementions

Hi EverytypeEvertype - do you feel that a sentance like "AAC devices use symbols from many difference sources, including proprietary systems produced by manufactures, personal photos, and by importing symbols from systems like PECS and Blissymbols." would be roughtly accurate after a bit of workshoping? xx Failedwizard (talk) 16:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

There are things that can be said about the underlying structures of some of those devices and how they try to superset different systems, yes. -- Evertype·✆ 16:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Great! – Quadell ^(talk) 16:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

And one of the things that can be said is that a few compromises have been made "dumbing down" Bliss because of limitations of the other systems. And another thing that can be said is that Bliss has benefitted from some of the elements of the other systems which had slightly larger vocabulary elements in certain domains which encouraged further vocabulary development in Bliss. But this can't be discussed without the article addressing the linguistic features of Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 16:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

We don't need to go into that much detail. This article is not primarily about Bliss. This material should go in the article on Bliss itself. – Quadell ^(talk) 16:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so we have something we can build on and expand for consensus :) (apologies for the name typo by the way) how do you feel about 'repurposed' rather than 'dumbed down'? Failedwizard (talk) 17:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

PLEASE STOP EDITING FOR TEN MINUTES. I am trying to respond and I have lost due to conflicts six times -- Evertype·✆

Apologies - assuming your edits have gone in now :) as a sepeate point - I personally have a concern about information about bliss appearing in this article, that is not already in the bliss article (appart from anything else, it makes referencing easier to come from the other direction) would you argree that one of the things coming out of this conversation is that we all need to be putting a bit more content on the Bliss article when we add bliss information to this article? Failedwizard (talk) 17:13, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks -- Evertype·✆ 18:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Disputers

• Crow: Recognizes it as a "communication system" and then summarizes the description given in the BCI Fundamental rules. He mentions the graphic description (heights, linear positions). Then he says Umberto Eco calls Bliss a pasigraphy... and it is one. It doesn't represent the sounds of a spoken language. Nevertheless it has nouns, pronouns, verbs, tenses and moods, prepositions, and syntax. It is a pasigraphic language. Then he cites Frutiger as saying he didn't think it was "viable" as a language, which is not the same thing as saying it is not a language (it's just Frutiger saying he doesn't like it). Then he criticizes BCI's progress for vocabulary development. There is criticism of Bliss here, but no argument which shows that Bliss is not a language.
  • Strictly the Frutiger quote is 'Adrian Frutiger is clear that the claim to see it as a viable language is 'unrealistic'.', which for me is pretty solid. But it might be worth us finding the Frutiger reference. Failedwizard (talk) 18:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
    • I think his criticism was of the viability not of the linguisticness. An un-viable language is a language which will not succeed (for instance, to become a universal auxiliary language). But it's still a language. And as it happens it wasn't viable as a universal auxiliary. But it is viable in AAC. -- Evertype·✆ 18:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
• Unger criticizes Bliss's claims to universality. And he's right. Syntax and articles and the like in Bliss are strongly influenced by English and German, which Bliss knew. But it not being an expression of some abstract universal grammar does not mean that it is not a language with grammar. In fact he mentions explicitly the grammatical indicators, and certainly does not try to make a claim that Bliss isn't a language. He makes the claim that it's not a particularly compelling universal language but that's the same argument one can levy at Volapük or Esperanto. Both of which are languages. Now the argument against Bliss being ideographic from the BCI point of view is that there is no phonetic component to the writing system itself. And there isn't. So Bliss is different from Chinese, whose logographs normally do have a phonetic component. There is criticism of Bliss here, but no argument which shows that Bliss is not a language.
  • So far I do not see a serious dispute that Bliss is not a language. People may dispute its implementation or its usefulness, but no one is saying "its not language".
• Smith I have not read. I will read it more closely tomorrow, but it looks as though Martine has applied Saussurian and Chomskyan criteria which would lead to Sign Language also failing to be classed as a language. Arbitrariness, for instance is easily described in spoken languages, because those develop over millennia. A constructed language like Bliss or a manual language like ASL will have non-arbitrary features in the lexis, either for mime or other iconic connectivity. Pace de Saussure and Chomsky, non-arbitrariness in the context of Bliss or ASL is actually not a defining feature; or certainly not a solid grounds for asserting that either is not a language. And I don't care if it was peer-reviewed or not; it's still naïvely applying that criterion where it doesn't fit. -- Evertype·✆ 19:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Shirley McNaughton C.M., Ph.D. is not a "disputer" but here is something she said:

"For my purposes, I have relied since 1990 on referencing the key attribute of language that Bjorn Lindblom (University of Stockholm) described in his keynote address at ISAAC in Stockholm in 1990. Lindblom (1990) noted that all languages have “duality” – “the combinatorial use of discrete units at two levels of structure”, “word” and “sentence”. Relying on this fundamental feature of language, I have most comfortably described Blissymbolics as a language, for over two decades. I have also thoroughly enjoyed for forty years exploiting the capabilities for language development that Blissymbolics affords." -- Evertype·✆ 18:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Suggested wording: straw poll

The current version states "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include less iconic systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more translucent Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not." This is sourced to Huer (2000), which seems to support everything in these two sentences. If you support this version, please say so. If not, please say what in the sentence you believe to be unsupported by the source. (And please keep your comments brief. This is a straw poll, not a soap box.)

• Support the current wording. – Quadell ^(talk) 16:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support More citations could be added; this is a statement that is widely held in scholarly sources. --Poule (talk) 16:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose thhe current wording. "Translucent" is meaningless, as I have said three times, and I can only guess that the author wants us to consider Bliss to be "opaque". Blissymbols isn't "an iconic system". In fact some of it is rather abstract. Bliss has vocabulary. Bliss characters are put together to make Bliss words. Saying it has "linguistic characteristics" is a dodge from saying it's a language. In fact Bliss has grammar. Not linguistic characteristics. Grammar. Plurals. Pronouns. Verbs with tense and mood. These are facts. They are verifiable. Look at page 17 of the BCI Fundamental rules, where the verb translated in English as 'to write' is conjugated. Then come back and try to argue that this is not language (not something with "linguistic characteristics"). Let's have some honesty here. -- Evertype·✆ 17:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
  • I have here a book written in Bliss with Norwegian glosses. If I didn't know Norwegian, I could just read the Bliss. Han har fortalt en historie til meg om kjærlighet. says one sentence. To put this in Bliss-characters (not yet encoded in Unicode) the text reads MALE-3 POSSESS-DOES MOUTH-PAST A(N) MOUTH-PREVIOUSTIME AT PERSON-1 TOWARD ROMANTICLOVE. It is completely parseable text: 'he has told a story to me about love'. So the first sentence in the proposed text does not work for Bliss: which do not require the ability to read -- what this is really about because reading Bliss is in fact, reading. Bliss is text, and one day when Bliss is encoded in Unicode engines like Google Translate will be able to translate into and out of Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 18:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support the current wording and going out for the evening Failedwizard (talk) 18:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Supports going to the pub for a few pints, anyway. It's been a hell of a week. -- Evertype·✆ 19:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support Sorry to weigh in so late; I wanted to read the discussion before I voted. I support because I agree that this issue isn't about a debate over Bliss being a language; it's about POV and RS. I don't think that a case has been made that the sources Evertype are either. Christine (talk) 13:31, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Translucency -- the word is no longer in the article

Translucency Evertype has objected to the use of the word "translucent". In Smith's peer-reviewed paper, I want to quote some relevant passages. "Translucency is another important consideration in relation to graphic symbols. Translucency refers to the degree to which individuals perceive a relationship between a symbol and its referent, when the referent is known.... The attraction of many commonly used commercially available sets of pictures, such as Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), lies in their high iconicity or transparency, which some research suggests may yield benefits in terms of ease of learnability and recall. Blissymbols are among the least transparent of the widely used graphic symbols.... Although they are commonly perceived as non-iconic and nontransparent, and compare unfavourably with other picture systems in terms of transparency, Blissymbols cannot be regarded as arbitrary. In fact, Blissymbols were specifically designed to bypass what the creator perceived to be the ambiguity latent in arbitrary symbol-referent relationships." This peer-reviewed source, which speaks positively of Blissymbols, refers to them as translucent. This is not an insult, but an accepted term. – Quadell (talk) 18:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Being entirely fair - I'm not convinced we should use the term in the article - it's quite jargony in this context... Failedwizard (talk) 18:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC) I understand. What's a better way to word it? – Quadell (talk) 18:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Personally I'd lose 'the more translucent' part. But didn't really want to touch the section right at this moment. (I actualy think that there is room for a paragraph talking about translucency (thought I think I often see transparency defined the same way) but that's a chat for another day... xx Failedwizard (talk) 18:44, 25 July 2011 (UTC) How about "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more iconic Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not." ? – Quadell (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict) I agree that while the term translucency is entirely appropriate (see also [8]) both B and M and Glennen also use the word "transparent" as an alternative term, which I think is more transparent. Haha. Let's try that. I was already in the process of trying to make an edit about this and to add some info about the linguistic characteristics. --Poule (talk) 18:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC) I'd still agree with Failedwizard; unless this section were expanded quite a lot, and those terms defined here, it's too much jargon for the space presently allotted. -- Evertype·✆ 19:16, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Quadell, you really don't need to keep playing the argument-by-authority by repeating "peer-reviewed". In any case, I would say that it appears that since she has to define the term she is either introducing it, or recognizing that it is rare enough to need explanation. That does not imply that the term is "accepted"; it may be novel or nonce. It's certainly nothing I've seen in other descriptions of writing systems, and that is why I had to guess that it stood in distinction to "opaque". (I did not suggest that Martine was insulting Bliss nor do I necessarily consider "opaque" to be an insult. Thus unless the whole range of terms (transparent, iconic, translucent, non-iconic, non-transparent, opaque) were mentioned in the article, I think it unhelpful to the general reader to have "translucent" in the brief sentence here. -- Evertype·✆ 18:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC) The better thing to do is to re-write the whole thing, probably in two separate sentence, one describing PCS and one describing Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 18:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC) "Peer-reviewed" is the opposite of an appeal to authority. – Quadell (talk) 18:45, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Only if your thesis is that peer-reviewed is valid while published expert research is not. -- Evertype·✆ 18:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Again, please read WP:RS and WP:MEDRS. – Quadell (talk) 18:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Fond of that dead horse, eh? You've still not responded to what I said about BCI's grammatical description. A grammar is a grammar, and can be published without previous peer review. And people have been publishing grammars for centuries. Most have been published as monographs. I reject your suggestion that the BCI Fundamental Rules document is an unreliable source. It is a formal description of Bliss and an outline of the vocabulary development process BCI uses. In fact it was "peer reviewed", by expert practitioners of AAC over the four years that the document was written and refined. Have you read it yet? -- Evertype·✆ 19:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC) As above, it's not yet clear to me that WP:MEDRS applies to *this part* of AAC, but Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources seams pretty definitive. Failedwizard (talk) 07:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC) This is unbelievable. Charles Bliss self-published Semantography, which Shirley McNaughton used to transform the lives of people who had thitherto no means of communication with anyone. BCI is an international organization which promulgates and supports Bliss for AAC, and the BCI Fundamental Rules is a technical document which presents an outline of the grammar of Blissymbolics as well as of the decision-making process which BCI uses for vocabulary development. I cannot believe that you people are suggesting that this document should be dismissed by bleating "self-published". Have any of you looked at the content? Have you looked at its page 17, where the verb translated into English as 'to write' is conjugated? In what way is the content of this document unencyclopaedic, or otherwise suspect and worthy of rejection? Do you maintain that the description of the conjugation is incorrect? Do you maintain that there is no verb and no conjugation? Do you suggest that Unger or Smith or Crow or Frutiger or Eco have said that there is no conjugation? Because they haven't. Do you maintain that by hotlinking Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources you can dismiss anything regardless of content? Because Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. and BCI is acknowledged by everyone in the AAC field as the authoritative source for information about Bliss. All of the AAC devices which have Blissymbols in them get them by working with BCI. And BCI has no competitors in the AAC field as a source for information about Blissymbols. So BCI as an expert source and the content of that technical document are entitled to be considered legitimate for inclusion in the Wikipedia. I have seen not a shred of argument from any of you, or from the sources some of you cited, (1) to give cause for considering Bliss to be anything other than a language and (2) to give cause for rejection of the presentation of Blissymbols in the BCI Fundamental Rules document. -- Evertype·✆ 11:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Look, as I said above, BCI is a reliable source. But being a reliable source is never an all or nothing situation. The NYT may be generally a reliable source, but it isn't the best source for medical information or about itself, for example. In this case, there are lots of other more independent, more mainstream secondary sources with greater degrees of editoririal and peer review that have chosen to highlight that the view that Bliss is a language is the 'opinion' of BCI and that they find this view disputable or debatable (whether you agree with their criticism is irrelevant), and who have chosen to call Bliss other things than a language. Let's take some: B and M "a pseudolinguistic system" p334; Cockerill "Blissymbols have some features of a language" p. 169[9]; Huer "a partially picture-based symbol set with linguistic characteristics". To be fair, there are others that have used the word language to describe Bliss. In the article about Bliss, it will be important to get into the debate: to say that BCI and other considers Bliss a language but that others dispute its linguistic nature/language status for this and this reason. While you want this article to take a position that it is a language , but we simply can't, per our policy of NPOV. There is dispute, and BCI cannot be the final word on the subject as you want. And per Undue Weight we really don't want or need to go into the dispute here in this article. --Poule (talk) 12:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC) If BCI is a realiable source why was the reference to the BCI publication deleted from the list of references? If BCI is a reliable source, why are you giving MORE WEIGHT to brief sentences here and there in a few other sources rather than to the full technical description of the grammatical system published by the BCI? Is it your thesis that B and M (whoever they are) cast doubt on the linguistic nature of Bliss by saying the words "pseudolinguistic system" and that these two words completely invalidate a formal published description of the grammar of Bliss? No wonder I am angry, when you give UNDUE WEIGHT to such flimsy argumentation. What does "pseudolinguistic" mean? Do you know? Do you know what a formal grammar is? Do you know anything about linguistics at all? I have been working with Bliss for fifteen years, and I do not want this encyclopaedia to misrepresent Bliss. The article as it stands DOES misrepresent Bliss. That is not acceptable. There is no consensus here: You are simply stonewalling and you are not making the article any better by doing so. Where your argument is most repugnant is where you say that BCI may be an authority, but cannot be the final authority. That may be, but you have edited the BCI view out entirely, so you have essentially denied the BCI view any presence at all. It is clear that this is not balanced. Moreover, I have asked you time and time again to use your intelligence and to examine the assertions of some people in print, given in terse sentences, against the full grammatical description given in the BCI FR document, which has been deleted from the references to this article. This is not balanced, and it is not good Wikipedia editing, and I am asking you to show some backbone and agree to edit the section in question so that it gives an accurate view of the field. Your saying over and over again that "it is disputed" while not showing any evidence to suggest that the grammatical description given by BCI are either false or wanting, does not make it believably disputed. And your refusal to allow the BCI view to be expressed simply shows your own POV that BCI is not an authority which can speak about Bliss, but in fact these other academics views take precedence. I'm not having it. This is WRONG. -- Evertype·✆ 15:11, 26 July 2011 (UTC) I think "abstract" encompasses the idea of translucency discussed above. Could we agree that Blissymbols are more abstract than PCS, so I'm thinking "Graphic symbol sets are available which can be read as imparting some direct meaning, rather than being filtered by verbal symbolism. These systems include the highly iconic, but narrow, Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), and the more abstract and robust Blissymbols."? I haven't incorporated this verbiage, but I think it is more straightforward, complete, and accurately depicts the strengths and weaknesses of Blissymbols and other iconic writing systems. VIWS talk 00:03, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks for your input Vanisaac. I think some of this could be helpful. But it needs sources, and frankly the notion of narrow/robust/direct meaning/verbal symbolism are not concepts I recognize from the reliable sources I know of. And indeed I know of research that actually contradicts the idea that PCS is highly iconic. I strongly recommend that if people want to make a proposal they find the sources first and then write the sentence. --Poule (talk) 00:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Iconicity is explicitly stated in the paragraph right at the top of this section, quoted by Quadell: "The attraction of many commonly used commercially available sets of pictures, such as Picture Communication Symbols (PCS), lies in their high iconicity " Like I said, this is an idea, but if you can somehow point to where you believe my summation deviates from the current status of "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more iconic Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not.", I think we could move forward. I believe that "not requiring the ability to read" is misleading - you have to be able to see the pictures, and there is some level of abstraction because this isn't just a set of pictures of every object in the world, and at some point you do have to abstract from a specific picture into a general idea. I would say that the visual component + the resolution of abstraction to concept is precisely what reading is. Seemingly contrary to your response, paraphrasing is not bad, and you do actually have to deviate from the verbiage of the sources, otherwise it is just plagiarism. My quote above is a paraphrase of the current content provided in the article and this talk page. Along those lines, my understanding is that one of the perceived drawbacks of PCS is that it is less grammatical and depends on the iconicity to such a great extent that it makes abstraction difficult. That would be the narrowness. On the other hand, Bliss is more abstract, and allows for easier abstraction - hence the robustness. Am I missing something by not having sources #34 and #35 right here in front of me? VIWS talk 00:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Given that the word is not in the article any more, and hasn't been for getting on for a day - would anyone mind if I closed the conversation (I've never closed a conversation before - I'm quite looking forward to it) Failedwizard (talk) 11:50, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Please. – Quadell (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Never mind. :) Failedwizard (talk) 15:09, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Editorial POV against the Blissymbolics language

I object to the bad-faith removal of the BCI FR from the list of references and to the way in which the text of this article dismisses the linguistic nature of Blissymbols by calling it a "symbol set". Blissymbols is a writing system (with the ISO 15924 four-letter code Blis) and a language (with the ISO 639 three-letter code zbl). Such international standardization (by the ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee) is in itself enough to indicate "peer-review" for the idea that Bliss is a language. I have read the few sentences here and there in other documents criticizing Bliss and not one of them "proves" in any way that Bliss is "not a language" and so the refusal of editors here to use the term "a language" when describing Bliss is prejudicial against Bliss and shows an inappropriate POV on their parts. The text "with linguistic characteristics" is weaselly, and gives the reader a false idea about what Bliss is. I request that this section be rewritten appropriately, so as not to mislead readers of the encyclopaedia article on AAC. I say this as an editor who is acknowledged to be an expert in the world's writing systems as well as someone who has worked closely with BCI and Blissymbols since 1996. I don't want to see any more talking-down lectures telling me to read WP: this or that. I have read them, and the arguments put forward by two editors here who claim that Bliss' status as a language is "disputed" and I have found nothing concrete in any of it to show any solid controversy. To claim that a language is not a language when a grammar of the language exists is possibly falsifiable, but Unger and Smith and the rest have not done that, and neither have the two editors here who have tried to ensure that the text does not call Bliss a language. Those editors' POV does not trump the facts, and even their citations do not prove that there is serious dispute, as I have shown above. This article cannot be considered even a Good Article so long as it misrepresents Bliss. -- Evertype·✆ 11:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The sources sited call it a symbol set. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

The BCI source cited did not call it a symbol set. It called it a language. But that citation was REMOVED by one of the two of you. Poule. -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Evertype. At the moment it appears that the version currently in the article has the consensus of the editors here, and it seems like we are going around in circles making the same arguments without anybody being convinced. As you see this as an issue that affects NPOV and GA status then I suggest you try and involve other editors. You could start a request for comment or make a make a post at the noticeboard for NPOV WP:NPOVN. If you want GA status to be reviewed I believe that you can do that here WP:GAR, though I would advise doing one of the other steps first. I just don't see the point in continuing this discussion as we have been. --Poule (talk) 13:12, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I am afraid I beg to differ. We don't have consensus, we have a dispute. We have two editors making claims that a few lines of text in a few articles "prove" that Bliss is in some way not a language, and we have one editor who is an expert on Bliss explaining how in fact those sources don't even suggest what the two editors are claiming. We have people saying that it's OK for BCI to be considered authoritative, and then we have the same editors deleting the reference to BCI's formal description of the grammar and then attacking me for trying to give "undue weight" to BCI's authoritative description of Bliss. I am frankly appalled at the lack of good faith shown, and the lack on your parts to even attempt to craft text which is balanced. "Bliss' status as a language is disputed" you say, and so therefore we must not be permitted to voice BCI's authoritiative claim that it is, or reference their external technical document which gives a formal description of the language's grammar. I notice that you have ALSO ignored the notice that I gave, that Blissymbols has been given a language code by the International Organization for Standardization which is no different from the language code given to French or the constructed language Volapük. So I see no honesty and no good faith in your part, Poule. I see you insisting that the article not describe Bliss as a language, and refusing to budge on that, usually by wikilawyering about it. Now you're trying to stonewall further by sending me off to RFC-land, because you're treating me (an expert on Bliss) as the troll trying to ruin your article. Collaboration means you have to take my views into account too, not dismiss them over and over again with spurious citations and by never answering the argument that I make. I would like to point out, Poule, that I have been editing the WIkipedia since April 2004, and I am on the Wikimedia Language Committee (another indication that I know something about language), and you have been here only since January 2009, and I have seen your RFC-tactic before. Would you like to collaborate on resolving this? Or are you just going to try to fob me off so you can keep owning the article? (Quadell has been here a wee bit longer than I and I suspect he's seen this too, but neither has he acknowledged that if BCI is an authority on Bliss then BCI's view deserves to be given in this article, and that does not constitute UNDUE WEIGHT, but quite the opposite.) -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

As a point of fact - you might find Poule has a been around for a little longer - the account was legitimately created for use in a university educational project - there are some details at the top of the page. Failedwizard (talk) 16:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi Evertype, in the interest of getting to the bottom of this, would you like to weight in on the 'Device implementions' top, I think we can argree on some parts.:) (also I promoted this bit to a section rather than subjection) Failedwizard (talk) 11:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I do not think my weighing in on Device implementations is going to do much good while these two other editors are playing "I own the article". And I've asked the THREE of you to read the BCI FR and to reply with some sort of statement giving an indication that you did read it and that you understand that there is a verb conjugation on its page 17 and that a verb conjugation can only be given if the entity described is a language. None of the three of you has given any such indication. -- Evertype·✆ 15:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

I resent that accusation. It isn't true. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:51, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I've read it. But being able to conjugate a verb indicates it has syntax and morphology, not that it is a language, which is a much broader concept. But all this is original research. We need to follow the reliable sources, and apart from BCI, they simply do not describe Bliss as a language. This has nothing to do with POV (my personal one is actually very pro-Bliss, with which I have considerable experience over many years) but to do with WP's Verifiability policy. --Poule (talk) 12:58, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

let's talk more about what we can achieve than what we can't. The section we're talking about is partly about the wording on this page and partly about the set of all articles that involve Bliss. As it happens, I am aware that the source you cite states Blisssymbols is a language, now if you are willing to come and work out some next steps and approaches we can solve this to both our satisfactions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Failedwizard (talk • contribs) 15:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Source Potentially of use

So there is this source (warning word file)[10]

which is UK-based, and certainly not peer reviewed but that is govenment backed and is also very recent.

Containes Information like: "Figures compiled by AAC supplier members of BHTA eCAT (British Health Trade Association – electronic Communication and Assistive Technology) show that in 2009 they supplied just over 1,000 hi- tech aids to adults and children in England, with the total spend by schools/colleges, local authorities, the NHS, charities and individuals approximately £3.28m. "

and also "Extrapolation of existing data on identified need and expenditure suggests a prevalence of 0.05% of children and young people needing high technology AAC, representing an estimated 6,200 children and young people in England. "

And there are a few other nuggets in the text. Thought I'd drop it in here in case you guys felt it should be used. It is very UK-based, and non-peer reviewed so I can see the disadvantages - and in any case I'm likely to pop it into the SGD article anyway, but it would be great to get your thoughts... Failedwizard (talk) 20:45, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

• Interesting; good find, FW! I've had a look and I particularly think the incidence of those needing high tech would be a valuable addition to some other incidence data I've been looking at. Who is the "Communication Champion"? Is there a website for this organization/person etc? --Poule (talk) 22:32, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
  • This is the champion: (http://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/bcap/champion.aspx) the web-pressence is very hit-and-miss unfortunately... lot of press, not much reasource, but doing good, and needed, work :( Failedwizard (talk) 22:37, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
    • It would be great if a newspaper had quoted the incidence remark, but I can't find it on a quick look. But I still think it has possibilities. The link led me some some interesting UK more general speech and langauge stuff I didn't know about, so thanks for that too. --Poule (talk) 18:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

More notes

Hi, Quadell asked me to take a look at this article before it's taken to FAC. I'm doing a copyedit/review, and will make notes here as I go.

• Sources: The format of the references are much improved since its GAC. That was actually going to be the first thing I was going to mention after seeing this article for the first time last week, so the improvement pleases me. I'm not familiar with the scholarship on AAC, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt regarding reliability, etc. Nice job.
• I'll go with the consensus regarding the lead image, but it definitely needs more. Adding more as per the above discussion will help.
• Unaided AAC: Last sentence in the section - The user's ability to control gross and fine motor movements needs to be considered as well with these approaches. - This repeats what was said earlier in the paragraph. Perhaps you can combine the content like this: "The user's ability to control gross and fine motor movements needs to be considered because formal gesture and sign systems require adequate memory and fine and gross motor skills in order to remember and physically make the signs and gestures. Communication partners must also be able understand the symbols made." Then combine refs 20 and 22, of course.
• Rate enhancement strategies: In iconic encoding strategies such Semantic compaction, a sequences of icons (picture symbols).. - Which is accurate, "sequences of icons" (i.e., more than one), or "a sequence of icons"? You can't say, "a sequences of icons".
• Multicultural aspects: Accepting a communication aid and being labeled with a disability may be easier for some cultures which promote accessibility. My question about this sentence, which prevents me from just ce'ing it, is: Does the cultures that accept disability easier actively promote accessibility, or does the fact that they accept disability promote accessibility? If it's the first choice, I'd change it to: "Accepting a communication aid and being labeled with a disability may be easier for some cultures that tend to promote accessibility." If it's the second, it'd read: "Accepting a communication aid and being labeled with a disability may be easier for some cultures, which encourages accessibility".
• I see the use of the word "behaviour" throughout this article. I didn't notice if there are any other British uses and spelling. Which system are you using for this article, British or American?
• I'm wondering if it may be a good idea to have someone that has nothing to do with disability to copyedit this article, to prevent buzz words. For those of us who live in the world of disability, it may be hard to avoid them. I recommend that you submit this article to the GOCE for that very reason.

Sorry, gotta go now. More later. Christine (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

A Dalek? Awesome... Thank you so much for your review and your copyediting - makes the article really flow. Anyway - I vote US spelling, I understand most of the regular editors to be US. Will poke. I'll start poking some of the other issues later on - though I don't have a copy of Dinnebeil with me at the moment, so I might ask someone else to check the Multicultural aspect so that it reflects the reference properly... :) Failedwizard (talk) 17:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

re spelling. It was written in Canadian spelling, which is a kind of hybrid. Poule (talk) 18:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with sticking with Canook spelling, as long as it's consistent, however you do that. Christine (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestions and copyedits, Christine! I can vouch that the sources are reliable, but many are quite old (a few in the 80s, many in the 90s). It might be worth it to find more up-to-date sources for some statements.

You're welcome. There's nothing wrong with older sources, as long as they're still accurate. I'm not discouraging you to find newer sources, of course. ;) Christine (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

You "Unaided AAC" rewording sounds great to me.

As for "a sequences of icons", as I understand it, a single sequence of icons is used to designate a single semantic unit. (Though when you use semantic compaction, you will use many such sequences to provide many semantic units.)

I fixed the accessibility line.

This article does seem to mix British, Canadian, and American English. I suspect we have all three of those nations represented here on the talk page. :) I can't see a strong reason to prefer one over another, so I guess we might as well take FW's option and go with American spelling, unless someone has a strong argument one way or the other. – Quadell ^(talk) 18:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'd rather stick to Canadian because that was the style chosen when the article was expanded. We even discussed it I seem to remember, and see here.--Poule (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, should have made the movement of sections to the archive a bit clearer - Talk:Augmentative_and_alternative_communication/Archive_1#Canadian_versus_American_spelling.3F Failedwizard (talk) 18:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Failedwizard! Poule (talk) 18:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Canadian English is fine too. However I'm not as familiar with that spelling system, and my edits have been in American English... so if we go with Canadian, we'll be dependent on you for copyediting. – Quadell ^(talk) 21:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Vaguely newbie question - is there a wiki tool that looks at an article and counts the number of internationally specific spellings? So the output would be '2000 words, 500 unique words, 15 America-english words, 25 Canada-english words, 7 UK-english words' if not, that sounds like a fun and useful project... Failedwizard (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe such a thing exists. It would be tricky, since many differences involve how a given word is used. "Mad" is a valid word in British English for "crazy" -- but if you use it to mean "angry" then you're using American English. – Quadell ^(talk) 22:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Interesting... that's actually a bit more advanced than I was thinking (I was just thinking of the unique spellings), but I see potential cool solutions, anyway - this is taking us very off-topic and we should take it to a talk page before it goes much futher, but I've been iching for a project that would let me learn about the wiki-tools and scripting stuff Failedwizard (talk) 22:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

My trick is to copy the text into Word and then do a spell checker with the desired US/UK/Canadian dictionaries activate. --Poule (talk) 20:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Fixed (I think) the 'Unaided AAC' line Failedwizard (talk) 11:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

and the 'Rate enhancement' line, but now the text is a bit clunky. Just so I'm following - the other (current, it would be great if User:Figureskatingfan was around often) recomendations are to finalise a language choice, and to ask the nice editors at GOCE for some of their time - I pressume that the former must happen first, but would the GOCE make a recommendation for the later? Failedwizard (talk) 19:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I am always around. I just didn't know about this article until Quadell brought it to my attention and asked for my input. I like to help, so I agreed. I agree that the text is clunky, so I hope that my edits are helpful. I'll continue what I started. Please let me know what else I can do for this article. Christine (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Entertaining - I was going to ask you what I could do for the article! :) Failedwizard (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, finished with the initial run-through. I recommend that you bring this article to GOCE any time you're ready to do so. I have just two more things to bring up here. The first is a nit-picky thing: make sure that the serial page numbers in the reference section is consistent. They should be em-dashes; there's a bot you can use for it.

The second thing is that I'd like to revisit the length issue. I know that previous consensus was against forking content into a new article, but I'm fairly certain that you'll be dinged for it at FAC. Therefore, I'd like to suggest that you fork the "Specific groups of AAC users" section into its own article and then write a summary of it (I usually use the lead of the new article) in the original one. Then you can name the new article "Groups of users of augmentative and alternative communication", or something like that. What does everyone think? Christine (talk) 21:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd be happy to take this on as a thing to do. Would be fun, but as you say, consensus was previously against it; however, that may have been more my poor advocacy of the idea :( Failedwizard (talk) 22:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I still don't agree, I'm afraid. The readable prose size (text only) is 43 kB (6627 words) (based on drPda's prose counter [11]) which is well within the suggested size. As I said when we discussed this before, I can certainly see trimming and condensing some of the user sections, which I began but never finished a few years ago, but I think we would (or at least should) get dinged for not being comprehensive if the article is basically mainly about the technical aspects rather than the actual people who use it and why. --Poule (talk) 22:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Just to put some more numbers in - when the debate came up last time, and trimming was suggested (12th March) the section Augmentative_and_alternative_communication&oldid=418465696 was about 2790 words (copied and pasted into word), but edits since have taken it down to about 75% of this (2245), I'm worried that if we tighten much more we shall lose information and/or make it difficult for new readers. Obviously I can't given an opinion on where we shall be dinged, but I do think that two seperate articles would look nicer, especially as the section in question is roughly a third of the whole article. Failedwizard (talk) 10:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

No, that's fine, the consensus is to not fork. Make sure that the FAC nominator brings that up at the appropriate time. I had to do a series of forked articles for one of my articles, which truly needed them, so that's why I brought it up. Christine (talk) 13:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for your comments. Still, maybe something can be done to streamline that section. I'll take a look at it soon. --Poule (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

History

So two things with History - firstly there's a question concerning if it should be top of the article or not. But while browsing Sign_language#History_of_sign_language today I found some interesting stuff, including the fabulous paragraph:

"In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) in Madrid. It is considered the first modern treatise of Phonetics and Logopedia, setting out a method of oral education for the deaf people by means of the use of manual signs, in form of a manual alphabet to improve the communication of the mute or deaf people."

Which I think would fit nicely in our history section (with appropriate attribution) and would let us use a beautiful picture of the book, such as this one, to illustrate the history section.

So my problem is that it's currently unreferenced, and I'm loathe to add anything uncited - my library is now closed and google isn't giving me much that's reliable - does anyone have any handy texts on deaf history that might support it? Also I'm generally asking if adding lots of sign language history is the direction that we want the AAC history section to go in? Failedwizard (talk) 17:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I think there is something about sign language development in Europe at that period in one of the articles I have. But I agree that it isn't clear that we need that much about sign language history in this article. --Poule (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant! If something turns up that would be great - otherwise I'll do some old-school library research in the old school library. ;) Failedwizard (talk) 19:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

My inclination is to not include much here about the history of sign language. I don't think that it fits here, in an article about AACs. I think there's a good case that the first AAC, as well as the most low-tech ever, was manual signs, and this article does a good job at supporting it. As cool as the image and the information is, it belongs better in an article about sign language(s). And because I've learned that I need to, I come at this from an expert's position; I was a sign language interpreter for over 15 years, and have been a fluent signer for almost thirty. Christine (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Christine. That's very helpful, and I agree that anything we include about sign language history should be very short. Poule (talk) 20:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a consensus to me - if you do come a reference though - I'm sure that editors over at the sign language page would be glad of it :) Failedwizard (talk) 20:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I did find a reference, but it didn't really support the full sentence about the name of the book/content etc, so I didn't add it to the sign languaeg articles.--Poule (talk) 12:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

With the help of a spanish-speaking friend and the university of sevilla I've added a source to the relevent articles that at least confirms title, author and publication date - hopefully I managed it without falling afoul of Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources in the process :) Failedwizard (talk) 21:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

You've been doing a wonderful job on the history! Thanks! – Quadell ^(talk) 12:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Poole, I think, deserves all of the praise for the recent changes, and they are indeed wonderfull :) Failedwizard (talk) 14:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

So, are we happy with the history section as it is? Are more improvements needed before it's nominated for FA? – Quadell ^(talk) 21:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the encouragement, both of you. I haven't finished with the history section. You'll notice it stops rather abruptly in the 1980s! I hope to get to it tonight but I have other things to do as well. Of course, please feel free to work on improving what I have written to date, as I always find another pair of eyes useful.

I'd also vote for not rushing to FA, since I'd like to read through the article thoroughly again myself. In fact, I already have a couple of ideas of areas that are missing. Something about incidence of AAC users in the general population will be important. I have also thought in the past that it might be good to have some quotation/text boxes with some quotes from AAC users about their experience with AAC etc. Other ideas may occur as I get to my read through. --Poule (talk) 21:52, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Just for clarification - I'm not sure if you mean improvements to the history section, or the article as a whole? Would it be possible to get people's insight in to how the FA process would treat this kind of article - I personnaly found the GA process was very pleasent and easy (mostly because Quadell did so much copyediting during the review I think) and if the FA process is likely to be similar in terms of 'Here is a list of things for you to fix' then I'm all for it. Also depending on the timescale I'm reasonably likely to have an amount of time to devote to chasing bugs. :) Failedwizard (talk) 07:35, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I've heard the FA process can be difficult and frequently dispiriting. (Which is why I'm so happy to have multiple hands working on this!) I don't know for sure, since I haven't been involved in the FA process in years. I've seen questions like "What makes this XYZ website a reliable source?" commonly asked, which we would be vulnerable in a few places. – Quadell ^(talk) 14:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that FA is at a different level; also that you may have been especially lucky in getting Quadell for the GA! In my view, it is a good idea to clear up as many of the possible complaints before the article gets there. What sources are you worried about Quadell? Let's try and change them for better ones. Poule (talk) 16:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Anderson is a personal site, though it's a fair review of high-tech AAC aids out there. Augmentative Communication, Incorporated, is now a dead link all the sudden. One Beukelman et al. survey is from 1985, a Danilov et al. study is from 1983, and a McDonald & Schultz one is from 1973. The Reichert Hoge & Newsome book is referenced five times without page numbers. Some "Beukelman & Mirenda" refs credit "Beukelman & Mirenda", the editors, and give a page number; others credit the author of the particular chapter, with our without page numbers. Things like that. – Quadell ^(talk) 19:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I replaced (and did some rewording) the 1973 refernece with a 2000 one, I don't have the Venkatagiri reference but if someone does that would be really good for working out which bits in the rate enhancement section it references - the 1983 one had me looking at the Unaided section for the first time in a little while - I'm aware that there is a general consensus that don't want to have too much content shared with the sign language article, but maybe we can have some stuff on tactile signing for people who are blind and deaf? I think the section needs a bit of work anyway and if there are no objections I'll give it a bit of a poke...Failedwizard (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, I've added a "to-do" list to the top of this article. I intend it to be a list of what needs to be done before it's ready for FA nomination. Feel free to add to it or cross things off. – Quadell ^(talk) 14:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

That's great Quadell. I'm sorry not to have finished the history yet, but real work and real life have intervened. I'll try to get to it tonight or tomorrow. Poule (talk) 16:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, real life is hitting me pretty hard on the images front - I've sent a few emails and called a few companies today about images but I'm aware they are all long shots... Failedwizard (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I've done the bulk on this now, but have a couple more sources to look at. Quadell, I've added a 2009 book by Mirenda and Iacono to the list, and made some hidden refs to show where the cites should go.(Mirenda2009). If it is possible to add them, that would be great. --Poule (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see those. Where are they? – Quadell ^(talk) 13:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

History looks even more fabulous than before! Great stuff! ( also added the Mirenda2009 reference) Failedwizard (talk) 21:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The "History" section is great (well-written, impeccably sourced), but it's getting a little long. Is it too long? Should we create a History of augmentative and alternative communication article, and summarize here? I'm not saying we should, necessarily, but I think it's something we ought to look at, especially if gets any longer. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I really like the history section at the moment, and I think that if it gets much longer (which it easily can) it might get a little unbalanced but I feel relatively strongly that if we are going to spin anything off it should be the user-groups section. :) Failedwizard (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

It isn't going to get any longer, and hopefully it will get a bit shorter when I reread it again as a whole. But I think I will do that at the end to get a bit of time away from it. BTW, the more I think of it, the more I think we at least to try having it at the bottom: it mentions too many concepts without explanation, and having it later will make the flow better. I have other ideas for a brief lead-in to the aided/unaided stuff. --Poule (talk) 23:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

I should say I completely oppose having it anywhere other than the start of the article. Would it be a reasoanble compromise to say that if FA say move it we move it (because I assume the referees know what they are talking about) but otherwise it stays? I think we can recognise that it seems to just be a case of two different personal preferences. :) Failedwizard (talk) 07:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't actually think this is a matter of personal preference, since the style guidelines for some similar articles suggest exactly this. And I don't think it is a good idea to just wait for the FA review either. I will make a change at some point and then you and others can see how you like it, when you see the proposal. It can always go back to this order if that is the general preference. --Poule (talk) 13:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay, can you point me the direction of the style guidelines? If there is a clear policy I'm all ears :) but I'd rather you didn't move it, it the same way you were against spinning out the bottom section.  :) Failedwizard (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Sources

Resolved issues and resolved discussion

Resolved issues Citation needed: "Some users understand the line drawings better than detailed colorful pictures, while others prefer the reverse." Silverman references the "while others prefer the reverse." part of this, but not the first, if we don't find a reference in the next couple of days I can rewrite the sentance and reference. Failedwizard (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC) I reworded with silverman reference, would like someone to double check before marked off... Failedwizard (talk) 07:52, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Looks great to me, thanks! – Quadell (talk) 12:15, 26 July 2011 (UTC) Citation needed: "[Other picture-based symbol sets], such as Blissymbols, are full ideographic languages." A source was provided for the consensus wording. – Quadell (talk) 19:04, 25 July 2011 (UTC) "Anderson" sources "Some high-tech AAC aids allow a user to record his or her own voice while the person is still able to do so, for use once speech ability has begun to deteriorate." Problem: It's a personal site, though it's a fair review of high-tech AAC aids out there. It faithfully reports that many AAC aids do allow this. But on FAC, they could argue it doesn't pass WP:RS. I suppose I could link to the individual specsheets and press releases of various companies instead, but it's useful to have it in a single page, and I don't think anyone would doubt the information she provides. I say we keep this as is. Replaced. – Quadell (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC) "Beukelman (1985)" is a 2nd source for "Dysarthria is the most common communication problem in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS); significant difficulties with speech and intelligibility are uncommon." Problem: It's from 1985, 26 years ago. But it's not info that has changed in that time. I say we keep it. Consensus is to use this source. "Daniloff" sources "Manually coded languages, in particular are less transparent in meaning than gestural codes and require more fine-motor coordination to execute." Problem: It's from 1983. I could replace it with another B&M ref if I wanted, but it's nice to have a real study. And I don't think the conclusion is controversial or time-sensitive. Again, I say we keep this. Consensus is to use this source. Fager et al., "Traumatic Brain Injury" chapter, from "Augmentative Communication Strategies for Adults with Acute or Chronic Medical Conditions". This is a book references with chapter names given, but not page numbers. The chapter starts on page 131, but I can't get page numbers for the cites. Should we just replace the cite with a better source on TBI? Or should I get it out of the library? – Quadell (talk) 14:29, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Replaced with more accessible resource. – Quadell (talk) 18:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Citation needed: "Tactile/tangible symbols can be used on low or high tech displays and switches." I've never seen a high-tech device with Braille. Should this just be removed? – Quadell (talk) 14:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Me neither, but tactile symbols aren't just braille. I could certainly imagine Charity Rowland type tactile symbols on something like a go talk or something. I think the whole section needs a bit of work, frankly. Poule (talk) 14:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC) I also can see it happening, and I've seen kids have a choice between the 'big red switch' and the 'fluffy switch'. A bit of work would be great (and I'd love to find a reference that talks about it in detail) but even if we find a reference for the sentance as it is, at best it is a special case of the sentance just above it. I'd vote to drop it. Failedwizard (talk) 21:53, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Fine by me. Feel free to put it back in if we find a cite and find it to be useful info. – Quadell (talk) 12:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Additional problem: Many B&M cites give page numbers in the range of 435-600. These are all in chapters written by other authors, and should be sourced to those chapter-authors instead. fixed. – Quadell (talk) 14:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Also, we really shouldn't have citations in the lede. The lede isn't supposed to give any new information, but merely summarizes the various sections, and claims should be referenced in the body instead. Done. – Quadell (talk) 15:12, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Citation needed: "The benefits of gestures and pantomime are that they are always available to the user, usually understood by the educated listener, and are efficient means of communicating." Aha! "A Proposed Augmentative and Alternative Communication Model" (Lloyd, Quist, and Windsor) says "With regard to symbols (excepting gestures or pantomime which are highly guessable and may, at least partially, be accurately interpreted by the receiver not possessing special training), most of the unaided symbols require specific learning by the receiver to effect communication." Looks like a winner. I added it. – Quadell (talk) 12:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC) Page numbers needed for: "Augmentative Communication in Practice: An Introduction", Cafiero, "Garret & Lasker" chapter, "Angelo" chapter, "Jans & Clark", "Mathy" chapter, "Duffy" book, "Glennen" chapters, "Hazel" chapter. Done. The Boser source is pretty weak. Surely we can find something better to source "Braille is further an example of a tactile/tangible reading and writing system." Done Failedwizard (talk) 17:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC) There are conflicting page numbers for Weitz et al. in the footnote and in the reference. Which, if either, is correct? Fixed - the footnote was correct, the reference was the page numbers for the Angelo Chapter Failedwizard (talk) 22:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Misc problems with sources: "Reichert Hoge & Newsome", "Burns", "Church & Glennen", "Romski & Sevcik", "Paul" Removed or replaced. "Beukelman & Mirenda" sources many statements throughout. Problem: Beukelman & Mirenda are the editors of the textbook, and are also the authors of chapters 1-12, 14, and 19. Different authors wrote chapters 13 and 15-18. Sometimes we sourced by simply saying "Beukelman & Mirenda, pp. 444-445.", but other times we source it by saying "Garret & Lasker" (which refers to a specific chapter in B&M). I'm not sure the best way to deal with this. Any ideas? Should the publisher/ISBN/etc. be listed each time? Standardized, per discussion below. – Quadell (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC) "Angelo", "Glennen", and "Weitz et al." Similarly to B&M, "The handbook of augmentative and alternative communication" has editors for the entire book, and separate authors for the various chapters. In this case, we have the book listed 3 times in the References, separately, under each author used. Is this correct? See also "Hazel" (chapter) vs. "Carroll-Few & Cockerill" (book). See also "Augmentative Communication in Practice: An Introduction", listed (and linked) three times under 3 chapter-authors. Note also the difference between the way Schlosser's "The efficacy of augmentative and alternative communication" (2003) is cited as a book, and as Schlosser & Lloyd's "Chapter 16" in that book. Standardized, per same discussion. – Quadell (talk) 12:30, 24 July 2011 (UTC) Comments Hi, I am having problems with my new computer which I need to clear up before I do any major work, but quickly... yes, let's get rid of the citations in the lede... this remove some of the unreliable source problems. I agree that the chapters not by B and M should be cited to their correct authors. I'm not too worried about older sources, especially for non controversial info but if we can support it with something else so much the better. By the same token, I think if we can switch or support by peer-reviewed journal articles would be a very good idea. I agree that we have to get the page numbers for the books. I note that some of these are at least partly available on googlebooks and Amazon, which might save a trip to the library, which I can certainly do if need be. Quadell, I find the referencing system used here very difficult to understand and work with. Would you mind if I simply put the information on citations here and you put it into the article? You seem to be a whizz at this stuff and it takes me ages to do. --Poule (talk) 21:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Yes, absolutely. – Quadell (talk) 21:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC) That's great. Thanks very much. --Poule (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Here goes: the first citation to Cafiero comes from p 8; I can't find in Cafiero anything to directly support the second statement, so the citation needs to be removed. We should probably check the other ref too.Poule (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC) I fixed Cafiero, though I didn't check the other source. I removed cites from the lede. – Quadell (talk) 22:15, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Okay I'll check it later when I do my read through.--Poule (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC) I'm going to replace Anderson. You don't need to do recordings on the devices themselves, and in fact in Canada it would very unusual to do so. So I am going to replace it with a more general comment about voice banking, referenced to this journal article [12]. --Poule (talk) 22:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Great find! I've added that ref. – Quadell (talk) 23:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Beukelman et al. 1985 it appears to be the latest review article on the topic, so I say leave it.Poule (talk) 23:44, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Daniloff is pretty much the last research into that specific area, so I think is okay. I've added B and M too. Poule (talk) 23:56, 22 July 2011 (UTC) I also just checked the Abudarham & Hurd in that section. For some reason the book doesn't seem to be in the reference list though I see Failed Wizard added it. FW, would you mind quoting the part of that book that supports the sentence about signing evaluation? I can't find it on p. 201-2, and sadly Amazon doesn't let me see p. 200 or 203; it seems a bit unlikely that people would do an fine motor assessment mainly to choose between sign systems, rather than whether to go the signing route at all. Also the author needs to be given as Gill Williams in a chapter called Augmentative and Alternative Communication. Poule (talk) 00:13, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I also cannot see the Abudarham book, but I found a good source for the assertion: Mirenda, P. (2003). "Toward Functional Augmentative and Alternative Communication for Students with Autism: Manual Signs, Graphic Symbols, and Voice Output Communication Aids". Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 34 (3): 203. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2003/017). This states: "In addition, not all children with autism perform equally well with regard to manual sign learning, and one variable that appears to be related to outcome is fine motor ability.... With regard to manual signing in particular, Seal and Bonvillian (1997) found that manual sign vocabulary size and the accuracy of sign formation were both highly correlated with measures of apraxia and fine motor age in 14 students with autism and severe intellectual disabilities." We could use this source instead, if the Abudarham proves weak. – Quadell (talk) 01:49, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Wow! Clearly Friday night is wiki night... would have been online had I known... Fixed the Abudarham link bug (was case-sensitivity issue, but still need to put it in the right alphabetical order) *blush* the reference should be 199, and 202, 199 includes a table on operational skills, which I can scan and email if people like and quotes like "motor assessment should concentrate on the client's ability to produce specific hand shapes and movements" and 202 includes the short general text around choosing an AAC system and judging the potential of signing. Just to address the query on "it seems a bit unlikely that people would do an fine motor assessment mainly to choose between sign systems, rather than whether to go the signing route at all." I certainly aggree with the point, but my understanding is that the text says something slightly different - my reading of the phrase "The user's ability to produce specific handshapes and movements is generally considered before a particular signing system is implemented because formal gesture and sign systems require adequate memory and motor skills to communicate effectively.[14]" is that the assessment is done before implementing *any* system, not changing between them. But I can certainly reword for clarity if you think that might help... Also systems like Makaton are often used where (and I apologise for straying slightly into OR here, but I have to go in a minute and can't find a handy source, thought I think it should go into the article at some point) the cognitive and motor skills are assessed to be too low for another type of sign language. There is a bit that is worrying me slightly - I don't have a copy of Daniloff so it would be great if someone who does could check - Up until Yesterday Daniloff referenced the sentance "Manually coded languages, in particular are less transparent in meaning than gestural codes and require more fine-motor coordination to execute" but now Daniloff references the sentance "Sign languages require more fine-motor coordination and are less transparent in meaning than gestural codes such as Amer-Ind". Given that Amer-Ind appears to be a manually coded language, these two sentances appear contricit each other somewhat. If someone could give the text that supports it that would be great (my own preference is to drop the sentance and the reference entirely, but I bow to consensus). Also I think the current one is probably correct because of this [13] abstract, but would be nice to double check. Also I think that the idea of replacing Anderson with the voice bank link is very sensible - it's pretty rare over here as well, but there are some news reports that can be dug out if we want to expand on the concept. And just before I run off - my personal preference is to not credit individual chapters in books, because I belive it makes it harder to find individual references , but I can bow to concensus - is there are halfway house? could we do something odd like have a second level bulleted list in the references so that chapters are easy to locate? I can knock up a draft if people are interested to see how this might look? Failedwizard (talk) 09:37, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Working backwards. I'm pretty sure we don't have a choice about citing the individual chapters where the author is different. See WP:REF and even the general academic principle of say it where you got it and correct attribution. Sign languages vs gestural codes. I've looked at Williams in Abudarham p. 199-203, and as you say it is talking about assessing different aspects of functions (motor, sensory, environment) etc to chose "a system" (ie signing vs pictures, high tech, low tech), not about selecting a specific signing/gesture system, which what the sentence implies (to me at least), with the word "particular". I am going to tweak it to clear up the confusion. I take your point about Makaton, but think it would be going into too much detail. re Daniloff et al issue, Amer-Ind is a gestural/signal code, not a manually coded language. I have access to the original articles, but here the abstract of the Daniloff article cited [14] to look at. Also it is confirmed on p. 43 of B and M. All to say, I agree this sentence about transparency etc is fine. Quaddell, can you add the reference FW found [15] too? It is an excellent addition and on point. --Poule (talk) 12:50, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Done, I think. – Quadell (talk) 13:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Thanks Quadell, also, I think your Miranda reference is great, and I think should be added too. I'll mark where in the text with hidden notes. This article [16] should be added too. I've rewritten these sentences to be closer to the sources, though have been hit by an edit conflict which I will try to fix in a minute. I've actually proposed ditching Abudarham, because it is probably not the best source (a rather general article in a book mostly about something else) and given that we have journal articles making the same point. --Poule (talk) 13:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Done and done. – Quadell (talk) 13:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Another thing that I am trying to bear in mind is that this musn't be written as a "how to" article. That's hard because most of the sources are written to prepare/assist professionals in their clinical work. That's why I took out the part about needing to assess, and instead focussed on the facts... adequate fine motor etc skills are needed. I think there are other places where this needs to be tweaked. Poule (talk) 13:44, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I know the book Reichert Hoge & Newsome wrote, and it is not the best source; I am going to mark it for replacement. I don't have Duffy, Burns, Church & Glennen, or Romski and Sevik and can't access them electronically, but will work on the Paul ones. So it is either a trip to the library or finding alternatives which I don't think would be very difficult for most of them, and probably desirable. To be honest I think we should aim to the same for anything sourced to "Augmentative Communication in Practice: An Introduction". It is incredibly good stuff, but vulnerable to accusations of being self-published. --Poule (talk) 16:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC) On second thoughts, I think we should replace Paul too. It is a very general text, and there are good review articles e.g. [17][18] out there, which will be must stronger references for this stuff about autism. Poule (talk) 16:45, 23 July 2011 (UTC) I just fixed one of the new citation needed tags - but found the info "Symbols can be strictly visual when located on boards or screen displays or they can be tactile such as with the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) With this system, the pictures are on cards for the user to move around to form a message." a bit odd - it appears to suggest that symbols are tactile if you can touch them - is anyone familar enought with PECS to know if one can tell the cards appart by touch? No, they aren't tactile in that way... more than PECS uses a more tactile approach in that the person using it has to give a card to the comm. partner as a request, or as it says, put separate cards in order to make sentences. --Poule (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2011 (UTC) Cool, in that case my inclination is to lose the sentance pair - they are unreferenced, and I think that rewording would just end up replicing the hazel reference below, what do you think? Failedwizard (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2011 (UTC) On an important sourcing related topic. In case any of you haven't read this, there is a link to WP:MEDRS, which is about sourcing for medically related topics. While I suppose one could argue that this article is not really "medical", some parts of it definitely are, and I think it would behoove us to think carefully about what we have to learn from this resource for this article. In particular, they promote the use of recent review articles from peer-review journals, and textbooks destined for professionals and graduate students. As a result, I have some concerns about some of the sources used in the article, which are more lower level general texts about speech and language disorders, written by non-AAC specialists. This is the reason that I removed some references Rhea Paul's book, and why I don't think we should be using Gilliam either. I have similar concerns, though to a lesser extent, about the chapter in the Abudarham book, as I explained above. But if we do use this one, it needs to be correctly cited to Gill Williams, since she is the author. There may be other references that we should strive to upgrade. --Poule (talk) 13:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC) I think medical or not is an interesting conversation in it's own right - personally I think the topic itself is not, but this article strays into the field. I think the best policy might to be to insist on medical references for medical facts (mostly I think in 'Specific groups of AAC users') and have normal wikipedia guidelines for social, engineering, and historical facts - I've recited the Abudarham reference to Gill Williams and I'd like it to stay - Gill Williams is a professional in speech and language thearpy and the book is designed for professionals in that area (and, to be fair, undergraduates as well) so it meets even the medical criteria. :) Failedwizard (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

All identified sourcing problems have now been resolved. Which is not to say that it's perfect--more improvements are always welcome--but the identified weaknesses have all been resolved. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)