How Does Language Develop?

How does language develop when that language is verbal, when that language is sign language or when that language is an alternative communication picture symbol system? The question is, “How does language develop?” How do we help a person to develop a way to be able to express what they’re thinking, feeling, wanting, liking, need, and contemplating? How can we do that?

Well, for verbal language development, we immerse the speaker in the symbol system that they’re learning, which is verbal language. We speak to them in whole thoughts and complete sentences. From the time that an infant is born, we’re speaking in words we know they don’t yet understand, communicating ideas they don’t yet know, and helping them to formulate a language to be able to do the same some day. 

We know that’s true for verbal language development. The same is true for sign language. We immerse the person speaking in sign language in sign language. We have sign language translators that provide a way for the signer to be able to learn sign language naturally in their natural environment. But to date we haven’t had a way to be able to speak in picture symbols in real time, in complete sentences, in all environments, for all different reasons, by all kinds of different people. We just haven’t had a way to be able to do that. And that’s where Symbol-It comes in.

Symbol-It was designed to give you a way to speak in picture symbols in real time. We were designed in order to give you a way to make language visible in real time and with complete sentences. In this way you can speak verbally and in picture symbols simultaneously so that the developing communicator has a chance to see the symbols and hear your language simultaneously in a natural environment and in a natural way. Symbol-It was designed in order for you to be able to immerse your symbol speaker, your developing person who is going to be able to speak in symbols, in picture symbols while you’re speaking to them so that they can have the opportunity to develop that relationship of the symbol to the language and the language understanding. 

Symbol-It is easy to use. It gives you one-touch and you’re able to speak in picture symbols with complex sentences. This is going to be an essential tool for the development of language through Augmentative and Alternative Communication. It will be an essential tool for parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, as well as neighbors, Sunday school teachers, teachers, para-professionals, siblings, peers, and therapists to be able to immerse the symbol speaker in the symbol system being developed. 

The problem has been being able to speak in the symbol system being developed in real time. With Symbol-It, at the press of a button, you can speak in complex sentences verbally and in picture symbols, so why not?