The article Marc Monfort wrote some time ago explains this communication. Given its length and complexity, we've decided to divide it into three parts for ease of reading. In the first part, we'll define Bimodal Communication (BC), its main objective, and the different methods of application. Later, we'll analyze the nature of the subsequent facilitating effect on speech development. And finally, we'll discuss the benefits of using BC and the difficulties that may arise when introducing it.
DEFINITION, OBJECTIVE AND MODALAPPLICATION FACILITIES
We can define Bimodal Communication as the most widely used augmentative communication system in populations of children with Intellectual Disabilities, Specific Language Impairment, and Autism Spectrum Disorder, with little or no oral language. It involves people around them using, in parallel with speech, hand signs that visualize each of the words they say. These are usually taken from Sign Language, used by the deaf community. We may need to adapt the original signs due to possible motor difficulties that each individual may have, creating individual signed dialects for each person.
Consequently, the concept of Bimodal Communication does not refer to a fixed set of signs or a specific implementation methodology, but rather to a type of communication strategy that is usually adapted to the individual. Thus, it is a generic concept that encompasses any program that merges the use of hand signs with language, as well as possible adaptations of these strategies.
The main objective is to prevent the inevitable gap between age and oral language skills from hindering their development, using a communication system that ensures better social and emotional integration, allows for faster learning, and, at the same time, accelerates the development of oral language.
People with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities, without behavioral or personality disorders, including those with SLI or motor disabilities, often follow a highly functional model based on the natural use of bimodal communication by the adults in their environment, encouraging their imitation and expressive use, as is done for the acquisition of oral language.
In the case of significant limitations in motor coordination, it is often necessary to add physical shaping procedures and/or provide parallel training of the motor skills necessary to perform the signs.
If the patient's cognitive capacity is more limited or if their social behavior is also affected (as in the case of Autism Spectrum Disorder), it is necessary to go through a more directive first phase, based more on conditioning and molding.
Text adapted by MARIONA ALSEDÀ FLORENSA – Speech Therapist, Special Education Teacher and Psychopedagogue
Fountain:http://www.asociacionalanda.org/pdf/articulos/LA%20COMUNICACION_BIMODAL_MONFORT.pdf