Pictures to Print: A Software Scaffold to Written Literacy

Background:Successful school placements require effective written literacy skills. When a student has traumatic brain injury (TBI), written literacy instruction may need to be individualized and intense to facilitate optimal reintegration into the school program. Software products can provide a method that assists in creating the needed individualized, intense experiences. Written literacy-learning experiences span a continuum from preconventional messages expressed through pictures, to conventional printed expressions designed to convey meaning, to the literate writing needed to create stories and reports. Design:This article is designed to familiarize rehabilitation and research professionals in TBI with the range of written literacy software and to stimulate clinical applications and research related to their use with students who have sustained a TBI.

[1]  L. Adamson,et al.  Symbol vocabulary and the focus of conversations: augmenting language development for youth with mental retardation. , 1992, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[2]  Joseph A. Kufera,et al.  Narrative Discourse in Children With Closed Head Injury, Children With Language Impairment, and Typically Developing Children , 1997 .

[3]  L. Turkstra,et al.  The effect of elicitation task on discourse coherence and cohesion in adolescents with brain injury. , 1999, Journal of communication disorders.

[4]  Charles A. MacArthur,et al.  Word Prediction for Students with Severe Spelling Problems , 1999 .

[5]  K. Nelson,et al.  Making sense : the acquisition of shared meaning , 1985 .

[6]  R. Abbott,et al.  Role of mechanics in composing of elementary school students: A new methodological approach. , 1997 .

[7]  C. Chomsky Approaching Reading through Invented Spelling. , 1976 .

[8]  J Light,et al.  Instructing facilitators to support the communication of people who use augmentative communication systems. , 1992, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[9]  H. L. Owrid Language assessment in the early years , 1985 .

[10]  M. Ylvisaker,et al.  Traumatic brain injury rehabilitation : children and adolescents , 1998 .

[11]  M. Ylvisaker,et al.  School reentry after traumatic brain injury. , 1998 .

[12]  W. Patrick Dickson,et al.  The Effects on Children’s Writing of Adding Speech Synthesis to a Word Processor , 1992 .

[13]  Richard N. Apling Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) , 2002 .

[14]  Wynne A. Shilling Young children using computers to make discoveries about written language , 1997 .

[15]  Tamarah M. Ashton Spell Checking , 1999 .

[16]  N. Nelson Curriculum-Based Language Assessment and Intervention , 1989 .

[17]  Charles A. MacArthur,et al.  Integrating Strategy Instruction and Word Processing into a Process Approach to Writing Instruction. , 1993 .

[18]  Rose A. Sevcik,et al.  Roles of graphic symbols in the language acquisition process for persons with severe cognitive disabilities , 1991 .

[19]  Anne Haas Dyson,et al.  Transitions and Tensions: Interrelationship between the Drawing, Talking, and Dictating of Young Children. , 1986 .

[20]  Marilyn Jager Adams,et al.  Beginning To Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. , 1991 .

[21]  Graphic representational systems and literacy learning , 1993 .