We examined whether adults with dementia could learn to emit a picture-based communication response and if this skill would maintain over time. Three women with moderate to severe dementia were taught to exchange a picture card for a highly preferred activity. All participants quickly learned to exchange the picture card and maintained this…

The effectiveness of a behavioral skills training (BST) package to teach the implementation of the first three phases of the picture exchange communication system (PECS) was evaluated with 3 adults who had no history teaching any functional communication system. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness…

Effects of synthetic speech output on the learning of graphic symbols by three adults with severe to profound mental retardation and communication impairments were evaluated. All participants achieved criterion learning using synthetic speech; two also reached criterion without synthetic speech, but the addition of synthetic speech resulted in…