Bilder som stör eller bilder som stöd : Placering av bilder som alternativ och kompletterande kommunikation i allmänna utrymmen på en daglig verksamhet

Sammanfattning: People with moderate intellectual disability often have communication difficulties and are in need of augmentative and alternative communication, AAC, to replace lacking speech and/or language comprehension. It is imperative that support in the form of AAC is found in the environments where everyday interactions occur. The purpose of this paper was to investigate how the placing of picture-based AAC affects communicative behaviour among participants in a day centre. An intervention was made where communication pictures were moved from walls to hang from the belt of staff members. The effects were registered through behavioural observations of four participants both before and one week after the intervention. The behaviours observed were agitation, apathy, motor anxiety and the usage of signs and pointing. A simple sign test showed changes in expected directions (e.g. reduction of apathy or increased usage of signs) for half of the twenty completed observations. In only one case could negative results be observed while nine observations showed no change in the measured behaviours. There were considerable individual differences among the participants. Two of the participants showed little or no change in their behaviours, while two reduced the non-appropriate behaviours apathy, agitation and motor anxiety in favour of pointing to communication pictures and usage of signs. The conclusion drawn in this paper was that placing of communication pictures can have positive impact on the ability to communicate in individuals with moderate intellectual disability.