Phase II – Expanding Spontaneity

 Objective:  The student will go to his/her communication board/book, pull the picture off, go to the communication partner, and release the picture into the partner’s hand.

Preparing for Phase II:  

create a communication board (i.e., a piece of laminated cardboard with Velcro on it, the front of a binder with Velcro on it, etc.)
store the pictures in a binder using Velcro; arrange the pictures in a meaningful way so that you can easily find them (i.e., sort by themes)

 Notes:

no verbal prompts are used
teach a variety of pictures – using only one at a time (the student is not required to be discriminating between the pictures at this phase)
use a variety of trainers/communication partners
train in naturally occurring situations

Training Procedure:

once the desired activity has been established by the student, place the appropriate picture on the communication board
the student must now remove the picture from the board and give it to you
once the student learns to do this, increase the distance between you and the student
now, the exchange must become more intentional first by reaching for you and then by getting up and moving towards you
the next step is to increase the distance between the student and the picture (slowly increase the distance)  
the trainer is the one expected to return the picture to the board once the student has given the picture – do not tell the student to “Put your picture back” – you would not ask a verbal child to “Put your words back”  
move on to Phase III once the child consistently and independently goes to get the picture of the desired item and brings it to you