Talk:Augmentative and alternative communication/Archive 1

Blissymbols
I take issue with saying "(True linguistic systems like Blissymbols transcend this limitation.)" (I have linked to differences between the edits). If you are going to leave it as is, please cite the peer-reviewed evidence-based study in which the limitations of low-tech devices were transcended by Blissymbols. This citation is necessary to avoid weasel statements.

Second of all, all linguistic systems are 'true' linguistic systems. However, Blissymbols is a semantically based linguistic system (as opposed to written english, which is a lexically based linguistic system), and not the only 'true' linguistic system available. Please make this distinction clear to avoid a biased statement.

Finally, saying things like "Symbols are also used within a complete linguistic system in Blissymbols" completely ignores the fact that alphabetic characters are also symbols, and are also used in complete linguistic systems.

I understand that you want to get the point across that Blissymbols are an interesting linguistic development. Perhaps it would be less biased to insert a fully referenced line (or four...) in the symbols section about Blissymbols (when it was developed, who it was developed for, how it is used in AAC and by AAC users...)? It would be interesting to see a note on a semantically based system, especially those of us used to lexically based languages.

I am very interested to see your contribution to the symbols section, especially as I have not had much hands-on use of Blissymbols, and you seem to be really passionate about it.

All the best, Jesszahav (talk) 21:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There are those that state that Blissymbols is a "graphical language" because it has language-like features such as productivity, grammar, morphology etc . It's clear that Bliss has more similarity to other languages and linguistic systems (both spoken and written) than many other symbol systems.  However, I agree with Jesszahav that statements such as "is a complete linguistic system" etc need some references. --Poule (talk) 02:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Holy hell, it starts with "Jesszahav v. Evertype"? That is disturbingly adversarial. However let me begin by asking, do either of you actually know anything about Blissymbolics? Have you ever spoken to a speaker ("user" if you prefer) of Bliss? I think that is a better place to start than with a-priori pronouncements about "peer-reviewed evidence". (Note: I am by no means a newbie, and I know perfectly well that "peer-reviewed" verification is not the ONLY verification used on Wikipedia.) In fact I am the editorof BCI's Blissymbols Reference Guide and am very well versed in Blissymbolics. -- Evertype·✆ 23:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, well, I kinda agree about the title, but think it was meant humourously, as indicated by the emoticon at the end! That aside, while personal qualifications are generally irrelevant here at WP, for the record let me say that I do have extensive knowledge and experience with AAC, Bliss and Bliss users.  And yes, while non-reliable sources may get used at WP a lot, mainstream peer-reviewed journal earticles and academic texts are considered the most valuable and reliable here, and the ones that form the basis for article writing where possible.  While I don't doubt your good faith claim here, nor your background, experience and knowledge of Bliss, the statement that Bliss is a "true linguistic system" is a very strong one, and needs an equally strong (and independent) source, especially given that Martine Smith (in "Speech, language and aided communication: Connections and questions in a developmental context", Disability & Rehabilitation; Feb 2006, Vol. 28 Issue 3, p. 151-157) states that Blissymbols (along with other graphic symbols) do not share "the features of linguistic signs", such as being arbitrary, truly segmentable (into arbitrary sub-units), and producible. --Poule (talk) 00:44, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The title was 100% meant as a joke, though I do see how it could have been taken as adversarial if you missed the emoticon. I have changed it to prevent hurt feelings. --Jesszahav (talk) 20:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

WP is not a practitioner's manual
Several sections of this article are written as advice or instructions to AAC practitioners, e.g. "Whenever possible, AAC devices should be designed...." WP is an encyclopedia, and does not give advice (see WP:NOT). These sections should be rewritten to describe AAC practices and research on them. --macrakis (talk) 17:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

headers?
hi! i'm not sure if i'm posting this in the right place, but anyway... the header "effects on speech development" is currently under the "specific groups of AAC users" section, whereas i believe it is supposed to be its own section (according to the layout from the sandbox). i'm not really sure how to change this. anybody know? thanks! --GoodbyeRosie (talk) 13:52, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yup, this is a very good place to ask the question!! I think that this effects on speech development subsection is placed there because it relates directly to the effects on speech in autism.  We may end up moving this part elsewhere later on, but for the moment I think I will just delete the subheading. --Poule (talk) 14:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Oops, I was wrong about the autism subsection thing. However, I have fixed it all the same. It's to do with the number of = signs before and after the title.--Poule (talk) 14:07, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * ah! makes sense now! thanks! :) --GoodbyeRosie (talk) 14:41, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Rate enhancement strategies
Hi there Team!

I just tried to put the rate enhancement strategies in paragraph form like the rest of the page, but I feel like it looks like a mess!

I would appreciate your input as to which looks better...what is there now, or the original. I feel like this topic kind of needs to be in a list format??

Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pam pull MOOSE (talk • contribs) 21:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Jesszahav (talk) 00:21, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it looks fine the way you did it (in paragraph form). Good job!

Pam_pull_MOOSE (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:38, 14 April 2009 (UTC).
 * Woohoo thanks girlfriend! :)

editing (Locked-in syndrome)
Hey everyone. I am new to this editing thing, so a couple questions/ideas to throw around: it seems to me that some of the sections include a lot of detail that is better suited to the main articles of other topics- for example, the locked-in syndrome section. it's really detailed and has great info, but I'm wondering if some of it is outside the scope of the AAC page. I'm just using this as an example, and to get some guidelines for how to write my own section. but I am reluctant to edit others' work! thoughts? --Yamsey (talk) 19:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC) b) I vote for keeping whatever is relevant to AAC use in that population (including the specific physical reasons a user would need AAC due to their specific impairment) and move anything unrelated to a different article (or remove it if it's already in that article). So long as the description of the physical impairment is immediately followed by "...and here is how aac devices are adapted to these particular needs I just described" or something to that effect, I think it can stay. And anyways, if they don't like what you do, they can always undo it =) Edit away! Jesszahav (talk) 06:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
 * a) There is a disclaimer at the 'save page' button saying that people should expect their work to be edited if it needs to be. There's a difference between editing and trolling, and you're probably well within the lines of editing.


 * Yeah, I tend to agree that there is a bit too much detail in many of the sections and eventually a bit more summarizing will have to go on or we will have more of a book that an encyclopedia article!! Still, it is always easier to condense than expand so I don't see this as a major issue at present. And yes, we can always move well-sourced material to other pages if it is more suitable; I already did that with some of the CP stuff.
 * I think Jesszahav has the right idea that we should all feel free to make improving edits (which might involve removing or condensing material, as appropriate.) Everyone's contributions are preserved forever in the history, so nothing is ever lost, and nobody's contributions will be overlooked, even if it gets edited by someone else later.  So, if you see a good way of expressing the information in a shorter way, go for it; we are working together on the whole article and no section really 'belongs' to anyone once they've submitted it! But it is sometimes a good idea to discuss major edits here first, just to get the feel of the group.  --Poule (talk) 13:16, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Effect on speech development
This section strikes me as being improperly cited - It fits APA standards, but in terms of wikipedia citing, there are no footnote references. In fact, it's not really up to APA standards either, because the full reference for any of the articles are not listed anywhere on the main page. Can the person who wrote it please go through it and footnote all the sources listed? Thanks! Jesszahav (talk) 06:01, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree that this would be good. I don't mind formatting the refs, but do need to know exactly what the reference is.  I will hop over and do one or two, guessing (I hope correctly) about the citations.  If these could be checked and the other ones added to the other parts of the section that would be great. --Poule (talk) 13:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Given that the effects of AAC use on speech development is a major concern of many parents, I think that this section should be much more prominently featured than it currently is. Parents often have the (false) belief that use of an AAC device will discourage their child from improving their speech, right?  I think we kinda get to that point eventually, but the 1st paragraph is pretty pessimistic.  ("AAC will not facilitate the development of speech in a child who is not physically capable of producing speech due to muscular or neurological constraints").  There's already some stuff about PECS, but perhaps some more of the positive research on the subject (i.e. AAC can actually facilitate speech dev.) would be a better way to open it? Yamsey (talk) 05:00, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Good points... feel free to fix or move things around to make it better.--Poule (talk) 14:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Hi friends, Thanks for your feedback. I hope the section is better now. I really tried to add in the citations myself, but in spite of Poule having explained it numerous times, I just can't figure it out. Could someone add them for me (it might count as your editing part!) A couple of them I don't feel require citations...I explained below. Thanks again!

Citation needed #1: Schlosser, R.W. & Wendt, O. (2008). Effects of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention on Speech Production in Children with autism: A systematic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17, 212-230.

Citation needed #2: Silverman, F. H. (1995). Communication for the speechless, 3rd ed. Needham Heights, MA: Simon & Schuster.

Citation needed #3: the reader should refer to the following sentence and the article by Ganz and Simpson, which is cited.

Citation needed #4: Guasti, M.T. (2002). Language Acquisition: the Growth of Grammar. USA: MIT Press.

Citation needed #5: I didn’t get this info from a source, it was my own hypothesis; that’s why I said “it is possible” and not “research shows” or something else more definite/concrete.

Citation needed #6: Schlosser, R.W. & Lloyed, L.L. (2003). Chapter, 16: Effects of AAC on Natural Speech Development. In The efficacy of augmentative and alternative communication, Schlosser (ed.). USA: Emerald Group Publishing.

Citation needed #7: Cress, C. & Marvin, C. (2003). Common questions about AAC services in early intervention. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 19(4), 254-272.

Citation needed #8: Schlosser, R.W. & Wendt, O. (2008). Effects of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Intervention on Speech Production in Children with autism: A systematic review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17, 212-230. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Astiquebec (talk • contribs) 17:07, 26 April 2009


 * Voila! regarding your citation #5, I left it as "citation needed".  I see your rationale for making that claim, but I do think it's speculation.  Is there any way we could look for some evidence?  Then again, I kind of doubt it would exist.  Maybe the best route would be to make clear that this is (educated!) speculation ...  "given that blah blah, we can speculate that blah blah" or something to that effect? Yamsey (talk) 14:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Putting fwd own notions, however educated they may be, seems to open the door wide open for original research. It's quote or die. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.238.67.212 (talk) 22:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Canadian versus American spelling?
Hi, team! I've noticed that we have some inconsistencies regarding spelling conventions on our page (for example, you can find both "behavior" and "behaviour" within our article!) I was wondering if there are any guidelines for this kind of thing on wikipedia? I'm a fan of Canadian spelling, but I wanted to put this up for discussion before going and changing these kinds of things (especially if wikipedia actually prefers American spelling...) Thanks! --GoodbyeRosie (talk) 20:28, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * A good and sometimes delicate question. Both forms of spelling are perfectly fine, though US spellings should be used on US topic articles, UK for UK articles etc. Generally one is not supposed to change an article from one to another style without a good reason, but the article needs to be consistent, that's for sure, and  Since we have a mixture here maybe we can get a consensus from a few other editors before plunging in, but I vote for Canadian spelling too. --Poule (talk) 21:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I seem to remember seeing something that addresses this very issue in the tutorials someplace, so for WP's official take on the matter, you could check that out (but they say pretty much what Poule just said). for my 2 cents, I vote Canadian spellings, too. Yamsey (talk) 23:27, 18 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I vote American spellings just to be difficult =) Jesszahav (talk) 05:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I would prefer Canadian spelling, but I can't find 'behavior' in the article so maybe the issue has resolved itself? Phlegmily (talk) 19:28, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, Jesszahav went to boldly to work and purged the American aberrations!!! --Poule (talk) 00:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Manifest destiny! Jesszahav (talk) 06:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

History of AAC
Can this sentence be removed from the AAC article and moved to the main article on ASL?

"At this time, the first academic text to discuss ASL as a true language, Sign Language Structure, was released and Total Communication, an educational approach for the Deaf, was developed." I am of the opinion that ASL as a language within the culturally Deaf community should not be considered a form of AAC, so it doesn't seem to have a place here.

Jesszahav (talk) 17:13, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Though it is its own language, gestures were one of the most primitive forms of AAC and the Deaf community played an significant role in bringing AAC related issues to public attention. No one really considered this to be a 'real' thing until the Deaf community adopted it and said it was a true language... That's just my two cents. Gir711 (talk) 22:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, I'm confused about this sentence: "During the late 1960’s, it became acceptable to use manual sign languages with individuals who had hearing impairments alongside cognitive impairments." Does this mean that it was acceptable to use manual sign with cognitively disabled individuals who also had hearing impairments, or that manual sign was used with both individuals who had hearing impairments as well as individuals who had cognitive impairments? Jesszahav (talk) 17:15, 19 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Good question. Not sure.--Poule (talk) 00:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Both types of impairments - I just fixed the wording. Gir711 (talk) 22:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Users' experience
This section seems to me to be really specific to the in-hospital AAC user's experience, and also focuses on AAC users with CP. I'm just wondering if it'd be better to make it more about AAC users in general. Also, the claim that "it was felt that the doctors were too busy" may be true, but I'm not sure if it has all that much to do with this article. just opening this up for discussion! thoughts?? Yamsey (talk) 04:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I totally agree. Jesszahav (talk) 10:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, indeed. Nobody actually signed up for this section, so I think the section has just benefited from an extra contributions from editors who found some interesting info and decided to add it, which explains the current narrow focus.  I am thinking that the Lund articles about outcomes should go in here at some point.  Again feel free to remove the doctor part if you think it isn't really relevant.  Somebody can also add it back if they disagree! --Poule (talk) 14:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Product placement
Can we remove the advertisement for "Safe Laser Access Systems" in the Locked-In syndrome article? Or is this the generic name (like tissues for 'kleenex')? And if so, should it be capitalized? The whole sentence could really be changed to "A laser pointer has been shown to..." Jesszahav (talk) 10:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * SLAS is fairly old technology now, and wasn't ever available commercially I don't believe. I agree it would be better to change it to something generic like laser pointers etc. --Poule (talk) 14:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Under this general header - I just removed Dynavox from the see also because the article is quite just a blantent press release - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Danger#Adopt_me.3F for a bit more of a conversation about it. To compensate - I've also added some details on producers of AAC devices (including Dynavox) to the Speech_generating_device page.Failedwizard (talk) 13:46, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Team
Since there is a subsection for 'team' within the main article, is it really necessary to describe the makeup of a multidisciplinary team in every population category? Instead, if in our course of researching different AAC populations, we find that a professional has not been mentioned in the "Team" section, can you just stick it there instead? Jesszahav (talk) 10:07, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah, this is one thing that needs could certainly condensing from the 'client groups' section. Nobody signed up for team either, so at some point the refs and information should be moved into the main 'team' subsection.--Poule (talk) 14:52, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Multicultural aspects
There's a lot of mini-quoting going on in this section. Can these be paraphrased instead? Jesszahav (talk) 10:31, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I would agree. Also, lots of really good info, though there is a lot of it.  I tried to look at the first 3 paragraphs, maybe the last part could be tackled by someone?  Yamsey (talk) 03:47, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Organization of symbols, access, early language learning and development
I noticed that there is repetition between these three sections (i.e. talking about grid displays and visual scene displays). I feel like discussion of the display layouts belongs in the organization of symbols section, but I don't want to remove this information from the other two sections until I get feedback from other people. What do you think?

Salsa1981 (talk) 13:09, 27 April 2009 (UTC)salsa1981

length of article
I don't think this article is too long. For what it covers, it is short, and should be longer. It covers many different conditions. Bull Market 02:22, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The article is currently 81kb, which according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SIZERULE#A_rule_of_thumb is in the "Probably should be divided" section. I'd like to have more discussion on this, can we have suggestions for possible sections that could be given their own page? My personal preference would be a split between aided and unaided AAC but I think that's a difficult split to make - a much easier one would be to spin out the "Specific groups of AAC users". Spinning out a section is a very new operation to me, but I'm quite willing to have a go if people are supportive of the idea :) Failedwizard (talk) 19:32, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
 * As an update - I'll move the 'rate enhancement' section to the Speech_generating_device page in the next few days and I plan to migrate much of the rest of the high-tech stuff to the same page (which does need a lot of work in it's own right). Failedwizard (talk) 20:55, 11 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Hello Failedwizard. Thanks for being in touch on my talkpage and for your interest in this article.  I actually don't agree with some of your suggestions. For example, rate enhancement strategies does not just refer to SGD devices... it is used in low tech systems too, and needs to stay in this article.
 * I'm not really sure that this article is so long that we need to think about drastic cuts and moves. Bull Market (above) thinks the length is fine, and as you mention, the length is only in the "probably be divided" category.  Can I make another suggestion for you? How about going through the current text and condensing/tightening it? I did some of this in 2009, and reduced the size of the article from 125kb (when the template about length was posted) to its current size. I didn't finish the process, and I am sure it will be possible to summarize things further.  Why don't you try doing that before moving sections elsewhere?  I will certainly try to help as I can, but I am very busy at present. Poule (talk) 13:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, great to hear from you :) Can we talk about the rate-enhancement section some more? I've looked thought the references and they all seam to only refer to SGD device only (obviously, in general, rate enhancement is a Good Thing, but the material we have here at the moment seams particular to the high-tech devices - am I missing something? (Also, do you remember if link number 36 - http://www.augcominc.com/whatsnew/ncss.html)-  should actually be http://www.augcominc.com/whatsnew/ncs5.html?). I quite agree that the text could do with a bit of tightening, and that's something I'm playing with in general, though I'd like to chat about some of the things you've changed back today - just so there is a bit of consitancy :) Failedwizard (talk) 14:42, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I didn't write or source much of this text; my students did. It does look like that link may have changed, and it would be great to fix things like that. I don't know if you have a background in AAC, but yes, rate enhancement techniques also apply to low tech systems. The Ventakari article talks about keyboard layouts, which may be high or low tech, of course. The washington link talks about alphanumeric etc encoding with is often used in low tech system. --Poule (talk) 15:04, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh I quite understand that rate enhancements techniques could also apply to low-tech systems in principle. It's just I don't see anything in the references that is low-tech? We might just be not agree about the definitions of high and low tech though - are you talking about some non-electronic keyboard system? Failedwizard (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Low tech systems include things like communication boards. These could be alphabet boards, which are organized in such a way to increase speed of access.
 * However, if you agree that rate enhancement techniques apply to low tech systems as well as speech generating systems, then why are you seeking to move the section rather than finding and adding sources that make that point? (and in any case, as I say, I disagree that the current references refer to SDGs only,) The goal here is to have a complete article, not to remove important aspects of the topic.  To be clear, I oppose moving portions of this article to the Speech generating device article. On the other hand, if you want to expand the SDG article, which would be a great idea, some material from this article could certainly be very appropriately copied (with the appropriate attribution) over there to help expand it. These articles need to be stand alone articles and some duplication of content is would be no problem.    --Poule (talk) 21:16, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for you help - I am very new and the feedback is very useful. There are just a few things I don't understand - When you talk about copying material how does this not cause a problem with Content_forking? and I'm struggling to find any information on the proper attribution when copying between articles - can you point me in the direction of the correct policy? I have plans to make the rate enhancement section much stronger - there are lots of missing references and approaches - but this runs directly contrary to the summarisation you suggested yesterday?  Putting the content into Speech Generating Device seams to avoid content forking, deal with the length issue and allow a large expansion of the section.  I went thought the references again this morning and I really can't see anything that does require batteries - sorry to keep badgering but could you point me in the right direction?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Failedwizard (talk • contribs) 23:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're welcome. I'm happy to help. A problematic content fork happens when somebody tries to create a biased article about a topic, by removing a particular type of information of an article into a separate article. For example, taking out all the negative information about (say) the death penalty or abortion and putting it into a different article called "Criticisms of X", would be a content fork.  As would be creating articles called "Advantages of abortion/death penalty". This is not an issue here.
 * Similar material appearing in several articles is fine. For example, look at these two featured articles,  Samuel Johnson and Early life of Samuel Johnson which necessarily have some overlap. This AAC and the SDG article will also have some overlap, and that is more than fine. SDGs are a subtopic of AAC, just as SJ's early life is a subtopic of his full life.  Rate enhancement applies to AAC  in general and to SDG devices. Information about rate enhancement needs to be in both articles, just as information about Samuel's childhood needs to be in both articles. The level of detail will varies though. So if you have lots of additional material about rate enhancement to add to the SDG article, great!  You can copy some or all of the text from this article if you want, following this guideline to say where you copied it from. Then add anything else you want to expand it. --Poule (talk) 23:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I see a strong argument here for splitting or moving this article. -- Evertype·✆ 19:29, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Okay so I think the general feeling from the community is against a spinning out of material. I'm quite happy to take this as consensus, but I'd like it left generally on the table. I'd like to get this article up to good article status and if the recommendations from neutral parties during whatever review process occurs are to split out a section then I'd still like that to be an option. :) Failedwizard (talk) 00:01, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Visual Impairment
Hi All,

I've been looking thought the visual impairment section - I removed one broken link after a bit of search to see if I could recover it, this left the section with only two references - and when I checked "Designing for Dynamic Diversity – interfaces for older people." [57] it turns out to be a case study for building a web browser for older (and hence *likely* visually impaired) people. It's relevance to AAC is very low indeed. But this leaves the section with only one reference (which I can't get hold of). Also, while all the other sections on particular groups are about how AAC devices have been shown to help/affect the users, this section is about how AAC devices must be designed to take account of visual impairment. Anyone have any ideas/comments? Failedwizard (talk) 15:28, 12 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for checking this. There is a lot to learn, but generally we don't remove sources just because the source isn't currently available online. See WP:DEADLINK. Have you checked archive.net, by the way?  I will restore the reference with a dead link marker, for the moment.  Also note that references do not need to be online and accessible to everybody, so the Beukelman and Miranda book is fine as a ref.  I would agree that the section might be better placed, elsewhere, however.  You are correct that this is really about the accessibility, rather than a particular subgroup of users. --Poule (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool, thanks - I could have done with explaining myself a little better there - the removal was more because I felt that it was unlikely to be a fixable link (when I did a bit of a google for the title of the article all that came back where this page and various sources scraped from this page), but I'll certainly make a bit more free use of the deadlink tag in future, thank you. What do you think about the other reference? [57] has it been misused? Failedwizard (talk) 18:02, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it has been use to source material not in the citation given, so have removed it. I've now replaced it with another citation; it was very uncontroversial material and very easy to source from elsewhere.  That should be our first impulse when dealing with this sort of stuff. --Poule (talk) 21:42, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It's great to have someone to work with - while I think on, what's your opinion on the company articles that appear in the 'See Also' section? A couple of them read very much like adverts and I've been assuming that we just leave them alone until we have time to make them a bit more balanced but I thought I'd check that there isn't another way...  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Failedwizard (talk • contribs) 23:33, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think your approach is right. Just take on what you can, as you can. --Poule (talk) 00:12, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm.... I thought I wrote a comment here... must of been distracted - in short: how do people feel about the content in visual impairment being rewritten into the access section (where I think the content is much more relevent)? Expands the access section a little and solves some of the oddities about the placement of the visual impairment section. Failedwizard (talk) 09:11, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I boldly tried this today, interested to see how it looks Failedwizard (talk) 13:26, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Communicative disability is of high importance
"High" isn't even the highest of the project's categories. Although Dodger67 has asserted that AAC is not important, and that it was discussed elsewhere, that assertion does not take the place of discussion. It is one thing to be disabled because one can't get up the stairs. It is another to be disabled and need special devices or languages in order to be able to communicate with anyone else at all. Indeed I would argue that AAC is one of the most important things for those who are most vulnerable. Now, Dodger67, please do not argue by authority, or dismiss me because I am not a member of the project. You made a change, I considered it controversial, reverted it, and asked for discussion. You refused discussion and simply reverted back. I have once again reverted your controversial edit, and once again am asking you to be civil and to discuss the matter. Thank you. -- Evertype·✆ 13:10, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Firstly article ratings and their criteria belong to the project concerned. WikiProject Disability covers an extremely wide range of topics. By consensus of the participants in the project High ratings will only be given to articles that cover disability issues in the broadest sense. The subject of this article is not such a "broad" topic. It discusses one "class" of assistive technology relevant to only a small number of different types of impairments. That is why it does not qualify for a High importance rating.
 * An importance rating conferred on an article by a relevant Wikiproject is in no way a judgement about how important the subject is in other contexts, a low rating should not be seen as dismissal or insult. The rating system is simply a tool for managing the articles that are of concern to a particular WikiProject. There might very well be another WikiProject that may rate this article as High or even Top importance (such as Projects concerned with language or communication) but the Disability Project's criteria are what they are by the consensus of the participants. If you wish to make a case for a change in the rating criteria used by the Disability Project please take the matter up with the Project.
 * Now if I may address your implied accusation of bad faith on my part: I gave a reason for the change I made in my edit summary. You on the other hand have not even attempted to provide an argument as to why you think this article deserves to have a High rating in the Disability WikiProject - you simply went directly into a personal attack against me. Roger (talk) 13:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I joined the project (since you say that's necessary) and I have made an argument. In fact I found and find your "There's no way an article such as this about a relatively narrow and esoteric subject gets a "high" importance rating on WP:DISAB" to be quite outrageously dismissive of something which is very important indeed. Something may be important even if it is not widespread. I have by the way looked for discussion about the rating of AAC on the project and found nothing. It is not true, by the way, that I have not given an argument. I have given one right above (did you read it?) and also now on the Talk page of the project. -- Evertype·✆ 14:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I think we can be pretty relaxed about this, firstly I would really like to read and material on importance in the Disability WikiProject - if someone could point me in the right direction that would be great. I think we need to decide thought where this discussion takes place - can we agree to keep it on the Disability talk page until resolved were more editors are likely to find it?
 * That would be fine. -- Evertype·✆
 * As an aside - Evertype - as a person who has expertise in the area - could you have a look over this article and check that you think bliss symbols are given the correct level of importance and everything is factually correct - and if both of you could weight in on some of the other outstanding questions on this talk page - like spiting or moving of the article? Failedwizard (talk) 17:06, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I dislike Bliss being lumped in with "symbols" because it's an actual language with actual grammar. Once it gets into Unicode it will be possible for Google Translate to treat it like any other language. You can't do that with PCS. One of these days I'll probably write a thesis about Bliss as a language and then I can cite that without it sounding like OR. -- Evertype·✆ 19:13, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Multiple Sclerosis
[edit] Multiple sclerosis

"Dysarthria is the most common communication problem in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS); significant difficulties with speech and intelligibility are uncommon.[25][76] Individuals with MS vary widely in their motor control capacity and the presence of intention tremor, and methods of access to AAC technology are adapted accordingly. Visual impairments are common in MS, and 35% of people with MS experience optic neuritis as the first symptom. AAC users with visual impairments may require devices that allow auditory scanning systems, large-print text, or synthetic speech feedback that plays back words and letters as they are typed.[25]"

The second part of this seams unecessary considering we already have section on visual impairment, and the first just confuses me - It seams to say that people with MS rarely use AAC.... any comments? Failedwizard (talk) 13:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Move I'd like looked at
Hi all. I just moved a paragraph from 'Cerebral palsy' subsection to the (now) 'User assessments and training' section because I believe it makes an important point that is much boarder and because the issue discussed affects many different users of AAC, not just CP. On the other hand I'm aware that the references mention CP specifically so I'm reasonably happy to be reverted (thought I'd like a bit of a chat first). Failedwizard (talk) 13:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Archiving
Just to let people know, I've added an archive page for nine of the sections that haven't been touched since 2009. Let me know if this causes problems for anyone. :) Failedwizard (talk) 11:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice, thanks! – Quadell (talk) 11:34, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

More notes
Hi, Quadell asked me to take a look at this article before it's taken to FAC. I'm doing a copyedit/review, and will make notes here as I go. Sorry, gotta go now. More later. Christine (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sources: The format of the references are much improved since its GAC. That was actually going to be the first thing I was going to mention after seeing this article for the first time last week, so the improvement pleases me.  I'm not familiar with the scholarship on AAC, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt regarding reliability, etc.  Nice job.
 * I'll go with the consensus regarding the lead image, but it definitely needs more. Adding more as per the above discussion will help.
 * Unaided AAC: Last sentence in the section - The user's ability to control gross and fine motor movements needs to be considered as well with these approaches. - This repeats what was said earlier in the paragraph. Perhaps you can combine the content like this: "The user's ability to control gross and fine motor movements needs to be considered because formal gesture and sign systems require adequate memory and fine and gross motor skills in order to remember and physically make the signs and gestures.  Communication partners must also be able understand the symbols made."  Then combine refs 20 and 22, of course.
 * Rate enhancement strategies: In iconic encoding strategies such Semantic compaction, a sequences of icons (picture symbols).. - Which is accurate, "sequences of icons" (i.e., more than one), or "a sequence of icons"? You can't say, "a sequences of icons".
 * Multicultural aspects: Accepting a communication aid and being labeled with a disability may be easier for some cultures which promote accessibility. My question about this sentence, which prevents me from just ce'ing it, is: Does the cultures that accept disability easier actively promote accessibility, or does the fact that they accept disability promote accessibility?  If it's the first choice, I'd change it to: "Accepting a communication aid and being labeled with a disability may be easier for some cultures that tend to promote accessibility."  If it's the second, it'd read: "Accepting a communication aid and being labeled with a disability may be easier for some cultures, which encourages accessibility".
 * I see the use of the word "behaviour" throughout this article. I didn't notice if there are any other British uses and spelling.  Which system are you using for this article, British or American?
 * I'm wondering if it may be a good idea to have someone that has nothing to do with disability to copyedit this article, to prevent buzz words. For those of us who live in the world of disability, it may be hard to avoid them.  I recommend that you submit this article to the GOCE for that very reason.
 * A Dalek? Awesome... Thank you so much for your review and your copyediting - makes the article really flow. Anyway - I vote US spelling, I understand most of the regular editors to be US. Will poke. I'll start poking some of the other issues  later on - though I don't have a copy of Dinnebeil with me at the moment, so I might ask someone else to check the Multicultural aspect so that it reflects the reference properly... :) Failedwizard (talk) 17:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * re spelling. It was written in Canadian spelling, which is a kind of hybrid. Poule (talk) 18:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with sticking with Canook spelling, as long as it's consistent, however you do that. Christine (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your suggestions and copyedits, Christine! I can vouch that the sources are reliable, but many are quite old (a few in the 80s, many in the 90s). It might be worth it to find more up-to-date sources for some statements.
 * You're welcome. There's nothing wrong with older sources, as long as they're still accurate.  I'm not discouraging you to find newer sources, of course. ;) Christine (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You "Unaided AAC" rewording sounds great to me.
 * As for "a sequences of icons", as I understand it, a single sequence of icons is used to designate a single semantic unit. (Though when you use semantic compaction, you will use many such sequences to provide many semantic units.)
 * I fixed the accessibility line.
 * This article does seem to mix British, Canadian, and American English. I suspect we have all three of those nations represented here on the talk page. :) I can't see a strong reason to prefer one over another, so I guess we might as well take FW's option and go with American spelling, unless someone has a strong argument one way or the other. – Quadell (talk) 18:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I'd rather stick to Canadian because that was the style chosen when the article was expanded. We even discussed it I seem to remember, and see here.--Poule (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, should have made the movement of sections to the archive a bit clearer - Talk:Augmentative_and_alternative_communication/Archive_1 Failedwizard (talk) 18:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Failedwizard! Poule (talk) 18:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Canadian English is fine too. However I'm not as familiar with that spelling system, and my edits have been in American English... so if we go with Canadian, we'll be dependent on you for copyediting. – Quadell (talk) 21:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Vaguely newbie question - is there a wiki tool that looks at an article and counts the number of internationally specific spellings? So the output would be '2000 words, 500 unique words, 15 America-english words, 25 Canada-english words, 7 UK-english words' if not, that sounds like a fun and useful project... Failedwizard (talk) 21:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't believe such a thing exists. It would be tricky, since many differences involve how a given word is used. "Mad" is a valid word in British English for "crazy" -- but if you use it to mean "angry" then you're using American English. – Quadell (talk) 22:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting... that's actually a bit more advanced than I was thinking (I was just thinking of the unique spellings), but I see potential cool solutions, anyway - this is taking us very off-topic and we should take it to a talk page before it goes much futher, but I've been iching for a project that would let me learn about the wiki-tools and scripting stuff Failedwizard (talk) 22:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * My trick is to copy the text into Word and then do a spell checker with the desired US/UK/Canadian dictionaries activate. --Poule (talk) 20:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed (I think) the 'Unaided AAC' line Failedwizard (talk) 11:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * and the 'Rate enhancement' line, but now the text is a bit clunky. Just so I'm following - the other (current, it would be great if User:Figureskatingfan was around often) recomendations are to finalise a language choice, and to ask the nice editors at GOCE for some of their time - I pressume that the former must happen first, but would the GOCE make a recommendation for the later?  Failedwizard (talk) 19:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I am always around. I just didn't know about this article until Quadell brought it to my attention and asked for my input.  I like to help, so I agreed.  I agree that the text is clunky, so I hope that my edits are helpful.  I'll continue what I started.  Please let me know what else I can do for this article. Christine (talk) 20:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Entertaining - I was going to ask you what I could do for the article! :) Failedwizard (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Ok, finished with the initial run-through. I recommend that you bring this article to GOCE any time you're ready to do so. I have just two more things to bring up here. The first is a nit-picky thing: make sure that the serial page numbers in the reference section is consistent. They should be em-dashes; there's a bot you can use for it.

The second thing is that I'd like to revisit the length issue. I know that previous consensus was against forking content into a new article, but I'm fairly certain that you'll be dinged for it at FAC. Therefore, I'd like to suggest that you fork the "Specific groups of AAC users" section into its own article and then write a summary of it (I usually use the lead of the new article) in the original one. Then you can name the new article "Groups of users of augmentative and alternative communication", or something like that. What does everyone think? Christine (talk) 21:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd be happy to take this on as a thing to do. Would be fun, but as you say, consensus was previously against it; however, that may have been more my poor advocacy of the idea :( Failedwizard (talk) 22:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I still don't agree, I'm afraid. The readable prose size (text only) is 43 kB (6627 words) (based on drPda's prose counter ) which is well within the suggested size. As I said when we discussed this before, I can certainly see trimming and condensing some of the user sections, which I began but never finished a few years ago, but I think we would (or at least should) get dinged for not being comprehensive if the article is basically mainly about the technical aspects rather than the actual people who use it and why.  --Poule (talk) 22:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to put some more numbers in - when the debate came up last time, and trimming was suggested (12th March) the section Augmentative_and_alternative_communication&oldid=418465696 was about 2790 words (copied and pasted into word), but edits since have taken it down to about 75% of this (2245), I'm worried that if we tighten much more we shall lose information and/or make it difficult for new readers. Obviously I can't given an opinion on where we shall be dinged, but I do think that two seperate articles would look nicer, especially as the section in question is roughly a third of the whole article. Failedwizard (talk) 10:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that's fine, the consensus is to not fork. Make sure that the FAC nominator brings that up at the appropriate time.  I had to do a series of forked articles for one of my articles, which truly needed them, so that's why I brought it up. Christine (talk) 13:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both of you for your comments. Still, maybe something can be done to streamline that section.  I'll take a look at it soon. --Poule (talk) 15:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Crazy Referencing Idea
So as a suggestion for the references could we nest the chapter references under the book refernce or is that very not wikipedia style...?

(obviously I'd put the chapter pagenumbers in as well) :)

Example 1

Example 2
 * , This includes chapters:

Would this be crazy? I'm aware it might be a fair amount of work - and I'm happy to spend a day on it, but the references might look nicer and be easier to find, what do we think? PS - apologies in advance for taking time from the article work for my potentially hare-brained schemes...Failedwizard (talk) 16:48, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I really don't know much about referencing, nor really care much beyond the need to cite the sources fully. But before doing something that seems new I would check out what all the manual of style pages say, to ensure that a bunch of work doesn't get done for nothing. To be honest my personal preference would be to do something like in the Tourette syndrome article: have most of the references used completely and directly in the "notes" section, so that one only has to click once to get to directly to the article, chapter etc. Only references that are used many times (and/or with multiple page numbers) etc are listed in a much shorter reference section. But Quadell has done such an incredible job on this method that I am not even really suggesting this. Poule (talk) 17:20, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * FW, your suggestion makes logical sense (except that you can't find sources alphabetically that way). I'm just not sure that it's standard. I've asked help from someone more experienced with tricky ref situations. – Quadell (talk) 21:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * :) This cheered me up no end that ideas are taken seriously (regardless of what happens to the article), It's great to be working with open-minded and dedicated people. Failedwizard (talk) 22:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

One of the main values of having the References separate from the notes is that in that section one can easily find all references alphabetically. Doing this would defeat the purpose. What has been done in this article works well, and is exactly what I've done in previous FAs - for example, Temple Israel (Memphis, Tennessee), where the LaPointe reference is a chapter in the Bauman book, so both are provided. The whole idea of the References section is to make it as easy as possible for the readers to find information on the sources. Jayjg (talk) 08:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jayjg! :) Failedwizard (talk) 09:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Blissymbols as language
The section about Blissymbols has been altered to say that Bliss is a "full ideographic language." This is not is the reference given, which describes Bliss as a "picture-based symbol set with linguistic characteristics", which quite a different thing. We need a citation for the "language" claim to remain. However, I would urge caution. The description of Bliss as a language is disputed. It is true that Bliss proponents claim it is a language;  (it is probably worth pointing out that Evertype has revealed himself to be the editor of the Bliss reference guide.). However, other scholars don't agree. Huer would be one; Martine Smith here in this article specifically examines the characteristics of language (arbitrary, truly segmentable (into arbitrary sub-units), and producible) and determined that Bliss does not meet the criteria); and since I think other editors here have Beukelman and Mirenda, take a look at pp 338-9, where the notion that Bliss is a language (and thus facilitates language development) is clearly attributed to Bliss proponents. This short chapter] on the subject also makes a fascinating read.  Suffice to say that I don't think the reliable sources support the notion that Blissymbols is a language as baldly stated currently.--Poule (talk) 13:37, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should state it in such a way as to not indicate either way whether Bliss is a true language or not. Can we do this, and still make other necessary points? Would it work to remove "others, such as Blissymbols, are full ideographic languages." and leave the rest of it as is? – Quadell (talk) 14:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. Certainly deleting it would be one way of solving the problem but I think it would be a pity as Bliss is much more language-like in many ways.  That is something that all the experts agree on, whether they conclude it is a language or not, and it is a shame not to have that included at least. I think part of Evertype's disagreement is that Bliss was described as a picture-based system, and he is totally right there (despite Huer!!).  I am going to tweak the original version and see if that can get consensus.--Poule (talk) 14:48, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I wholeheartedly disagree that it should be deleted just so that you can make this a featured article. I am in fact shocked by the suggestion. Bliss has nouns, personal pronouns, adjectives, and verbs with tenses and moods. In what way is it "controversial" that this constitutes language? Do any of you know any Bliss users? I know a Norwegian Bliss user who has written a novella in Bliss. It has been published side-by-side with a Norwegian translation. If you cannot read Norwegian, but you can read Bliss, you can translate it into English. Or French. From the Bliss. What is it you want? -- Evertype·✆ 14:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This isn't about what you or I believe, Evertype. This is about what can be sources to reliable sources. I see that you have strong opinions on the topic, and that's fine, but many AAC experts disagree with you. (Others agree with you.) We simply cannot state that Bliss is a full language, no matter how certain you are that it is, so long as there is meaningful disagreement on the issue. And Poule's citations above show that there is. – Quadell (talk) 15:07, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I've got a middle way, with reference, give me five minutes for a quick edit...Failedwizard (talk) 15:01, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Never mind, hit an edit conflict, but quick like Pooles recent edit Failedwizard (talk) 15:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ahem 'Quite like, Poole's', I must learn to type.Failedwizard (talk) 15:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

That just makes me an expert, dear fellow-editors. Wikipedia does wish to attract experts, does it not? I find Poule's assertion that Martine Smith (whom I know) has "shown" Bliss not to be linguistic to be doubtful, particularly as it is not possible to access that paper. Bliss is not by any means just a "picture-based symbol set". I don't know a single person who works with Bliss who thinks it is anything but language -- because it is language. -- Evertype·✆ 15:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I can see Smith's paper. I can e-mail it to you if you like. I think we should work on a wording that all sides can agree on. – Quadell (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Poule has suggested "Graphic symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. These include less iconic systems such as Blissymbols which have linguistic characteristics and the more translucent Picture Communication Symbols (PCS) which do not."

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this wording? – Quadell (talk) 15:12, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * "Translucent is certainly meaningless. And Bliss is not a "symbol set". No one who uses Bliss calls it that. I regularly attend vocabulary development conferences for Bliss. Everybody who works with Bliss knows what it is. As a linguist and specialist in writing systems, I can say that it is obvious, and demonstrable, that Bliss is a language. It is simply false to try to call it "a symbol set". I have reverted the sentence and added a link to the Fundamental Rules of Blissymbolics document, which describes in detail the linguistic characteristics of Bliss. Reading Bliss is reading. It's just not reading the Latin alphabet. -- Evertype·✆ 15:19, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Can we take the (In my experience accurate) approach of saying that AAC repourposes icons orginally from the Blisssymbols approach? I know of no VOCA that uses Blisssymbols as anything other than a picture library... but I run out of knowledge fast on the non-electronic side... Failedwizard (talk) 15:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

This whole thing is getting out of hand. I'\m being accused by Quadel of violating the reversion rule when I have simply restored accurate text while adding the reference requested. I will not support a version of this article which claims that Bliss is not language, when it is obvious to anyone who knows anything about either Bliss or language that it is. -- Evertype·✆ 15:25, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Well, you are reverting against several editors and claiming that your version is "accurate" even though the only reference you have used to support it is a self-published Bliss publication, and your own personal experience and knowledge. Neither is a strong source in WP terms;  peer-reviewed journal articles and scholarly books which do indeed call Bliss a graphic symbol set, less translucent etc. --Poule (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Quadel, I have seen no evidence at all that Bliss is not language. Where is the refutation of its use of tense and mood? Of word order? Of definite articles? Of adjectival markers? Of prepositions? Of regular word order and punctuation? In other words, where is the "meaningful disagreement"? I see none. -- Evertype·✆ 15:30, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Please calm down, Evertype. For the record, I would also not support any version that claims Bliss is not a language. And I would not support any version that claims it categorically is a language, since there (obviously) is meaningful debate on this point. Please read Huer and/or Smith for the opinions of some experts that disagree with you. I don't wish to convince you that Bliss might not be a language, but I want this article to adhere to NPOV. The wording you have most recently suggested is this:
 * Picture-based symbol sets are available which do not require the ability to read. Most picture systems, such as the Picture Communication System (PCS), do not support linguistic precision very well, although this is one of the strengths of Blissymbols, which is an ideographic language, not a "picture system".
 * I see a few problems with this. First, the wording "one of the strengths of Blissymbols" feels like an advert. Second, this version still states that Blissymbols is an ideographic language, and this claim is not sourced. I also know that this claim is contested. How can we word this in a way that is acceptable to experts on both sides of the debate? – Quadell (talk) 15:33, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As (genuinely) fun as the languge or not debate will be, how do you feel about my suggestion, which made no mention of the language or not language status of Bliss? xx Failedwizard (talk) 15:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I may not understand the suggestion fully. How would you word it? (I don't see any point in debating whether Bliss is a language or not, since I don't think the article should say one way or the other, and I don't suspect anyone's views will change in any case.) – Quadell (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry - was trying to type quickly because keep getting edit conflicted - would be inclined to say (at the very simple end) "AAC devices use symbols from many difference sources, including proprietary systems produced by manufactures, personal photos, and by importing symbols from systems like PECS and Blissymbols." Failedwizard (talk) 15:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds great, but it'll need a source. – Quadell (talk) 15:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, and also this dispute isn't about how AAC devices use symbol systems, but the general topic of symbols and their nature, low tech and high tech.--Poule (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I can source... it's just a case of working out which book on my desk I got it form (big pile - finding references is *fun*) :) I like Poule's text at the moment though so it might be a fallback position... personally think (as you might get from the suggestion) that the issue is outside the scope of the article, but I'd be really interested to find out more in general Failedwizard (talk) 15:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict x3) I completely concur with Quaddell that this article shouldn't say either way whether it is or it isn't a language. It is disputed and in any case the info doesn't advance the article.  I'll also note that Evertype's edit that PCS "do not support lingustic precision very well" is not in Huer, though I agree it is true.  But that's the problem here, editors are suggesting things that they think are true, when WP's policies require us to start by looking for the highest quality reliable sources and simply reporting what they say. --Poule (talk) 15:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Very true. I believe that the latest "Poule" version states only information that can be found in reliable sources, and does not promote any one point of view over another. – Quadell (talk) 15:54, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) For people's information and edification, I note that even our Blissymbolics article contains information that scholars dispute its language status. The section is currently unsourced, but I am just off to add this reference  which is a further example of academic disputing the issue. --Poule (talk) 16:06, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

The Fundamental Rules was not self-published. That was published by BCI in Canada. I was simply the editor of the document. The core of the issue here is Poule and Quadel's unsupported assertions that "it is disputed" whether Bliss is a language. Of course it was a lanugage when Charles Bliss invented it. And it has all the features of a language (nouns, verbs, tense, mood, etc). And all of the people who use Bliss (whether therapists or users) know that it is language. And Martine Smith certainly knows it is, and in fact it is she who introduced me to the BCI people in 1997 or so. So all I see here is unsupported assertions by two editors that Bliss isn't language and if you place that against Charles Bliss' book, and the text of the Fundamental Rules of Blissymbolics (which I assume neither of them have bothered to read) then I say that the weight of the argument it that it is language. Saying that there is a dispute and not backing up that claim by anything is not encyclopaedic. It's your POV. I did what was asked: I provided a grammatical description of Bliss, and you're now trying to dismiss that as samizdat just because I worked on it. Well I worked on it for four years with the BCI committee. And that makes me an EXPERT on Bliss. No article on AAC that does not describe Bliss accurately can possible be considered to be a good article much less a featured one and believe me this had better be sorted out satisfactorily or it will be a long time indeed that you don't get the FA status that you appear to want more than accuracy about Bliss. Unbelievable bad faith from the pair of you. And I'm trying to assume good faith, But unsupported assertions don't cut it. -- Evertype·✆ 16:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Evertype, BCI-published material about Blissymbolics is self-published material. It doesn't make it bad, but it doesn't make it authorative either, especially as multiple sources, including this one have pointed out the BCI and Bliss proponents have strongly argued claims that Bliss is a language. BCI etc have taken  a  well-documented position, but just because BCI says it doesn't make it so.  And in fact as has been pointed out several times, multiple academics have disputed it, as is clear in reliable sources. Your personal knowledge and experience doesn't give you any special status here; what you need to find are high quality independent sources that the consensus of academic opinion is that Bliss is a language.  I've looked and it simply isn't there.
 * I agree this needs to be sorted out before FA, but personally I don't think we would or should pass NPOV criteria if we used the BCI claim and reference. In fact, the topic is exceptionally tangential to this article. The discussion is much more relevant to the Blissymbolics article, and there the two views would also have to be presented per NPOV, as it is currently, though in a somewhat disjointed fashion. --Poule (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break: Bliss as language
Trying to address points. Please let me do this with bullets before starting in on responses.
 * "One of the strengths of Bliss" is not an advert. But AAC can be meaningful and useful or it can not. A Bliss user can express worry about the bad dream he had about the fate of his dog who died the previous week. I doubt something like PCS can do that. PCS is not linguistically rich. Accordingly, useful as it is for users with certain abilities, it is not either robust or useful for users with unimpaired minds but uncooperative bodies. Bliss is useful for such users, and the fact that it is linguistic in nature is one of its strengths, and makes it better for some users than PCS. This should be in the article.
 * This article isn't primarily about Bliss. Naming Bliss' strengths is outside the scope of this article. – Quadell (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We are talking about one sentence in the article. And another about PCS. There is no reason that the differences between these cannot be expressed in the article. And that means describing Bliss accurately. -- Evertype·✆ 17:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Whoa.... some of the PCS users I know with "unimpaired minds but uncooperative bodies", would beg to disagree.  But this is a perfect example of why personal experience and knowledge is not a factor here.  Please see WP:OR--Poule (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * What is said on a Talk page is not the same as what is said in an article. We all know there are continua of users. -- Evertype·✆ 17:11, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The article on Bliss does not cite any scholars saying that Bliss is not a language. It cites three general linguists talking about whether there is such a thing as an ideographic language at all. There is no evidence that any of the three of them was saying anything about Bliss at all. In fact aI am sure they were not. DeFrancis was certainly talking about Chinese. (Bliss happens to be the exception that proves the rule; those three are right about Chinese and Egyptian not being ideographic.
 * The article doesn't claim Bliss is not a language. – Quadell (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You said that the Blissymbolics article contained such criticism, and I am saying that it doesn't. -- Evertype·✆
 * Indeed, and incidentally appears you didn't check the link I gave above, since Bliss is discussed specifically. --Poule (talk) 17:02, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There was no link to that article from the Blissymbolics page. I usually don't try to check Googlebooks because it is usually blocked in Ireland. Anyway his one-sentence criticism is about glyph design, and is certainly no refutation of the grammatical description in the BCI Fundamental Rules document. -- Evertype·✆ 17:15, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * But it is linked; check the reference section. And it is worth reading all the pages cited, 14-16 and 26. --Poule (talk) 17:31, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not see a link to the Unger article at Blissymbolics. -- Evertype·✆ 17:42, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely there - thought it's part of the recent update - Poule mentioned earlier that they were adding the relevent reference to the article :) maybe refresh in case something has got caught in the cache? Failedwizard (talk) 17:47, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, it was not there ten minutes ago! I have read it. He criticizes Bliss's claims to universality. And he's right. Syntax and articles and the like in Bliss are strongly influenced by English and German, which Bliss knew. But it not being an expression of some abstract universal grammar does not mean that it is not a language with grammar. In fact he mentions explicitly the grammatical indicators, and certainly does not try to make a claim that Bliss isn't a language. He makes the claim that it's not a particularly compelling universal language but that's the same argument one can levy at Volapük or Esperanto. Both of which are languages. Now the argument against Bliss being ideographic from the BCI point of view is that there is no phonetic component to the writing system itself. And there isn't. So Bliss is different from Chinese, whose logographs normally do have a phonetic component. -- Evertype·✆ 18:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * BCI has been using Bliss as an AAC strategy with users for FORTY YEARS. I'm sorry, but that you cannot dismiss that organization's publication of a comprehensive grammatical description of the language simply because it did was not published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. It is as legitimate a publication as any publication, and there is no rule on the WIkipedia that only peer-reviewed academic journal citations "count" as reliable sources. As you are an intelligent editor, I ask you to read the Fundamental Rules. Is it a grammatical description of a language? A linguist will tell you that it is.
 * Please read WP:RS. – Quadell (talk) 16:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been editing the Wikipedia for seven years. Telling me "Read WP:RS" is a nice passive-aggressive way of not answering my point. It is a attempt to quash discussion and to make you look like you know better about the WIkipedia than I do. That's not good faith in any way whatsoever. A publication by an organization with long-standing experience can certainly be authoritative. In this case, it certainly is. The BCI Fundamental Rules describes the graphic and grammatical features of the language. In fact no peer-review is required for evaluation of such a description. There are tense and mood markers for verbs in Bliss. This cannot be disputed. I published a grammar of Breton. It was not peer-reviewed. It is nevertheless a grammar of Breton. I dispute your apparent argument that the BCI Fundamental Rules is unreliable simply because it has been published by BCI. For you to show that it is unreliable, you must show that its content is unreliable. -- Evertype·✆ 17:22, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A BCI publication is authorative for its opinion. It is not authorative for a bald statement that Blissymbolics is a language. --Poule (talk) 17:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This is just wrong, Poule. The BCI publication describes the grammar of Bliss. David Crow also pointed out that the BCI document described the grammar of Bliss. What on earth do you think a grammar is, if not the description of a language? Please, don't retort with another one-liner to slap down this discussion. Explain it to me. Because what you have said makes no sense. You're arguing by authority, not dealing with content. And you need to justify your view that the publications of an incorporated organization are unreliable. Are the documents published by the Red Cross unreliable? Are the user manuals published by companies that manufacture goods unreliable because they are self-published? I'm a publisher, you know. Are the grammars of Breton and Cornish which I publish, because I publish them? Are peer-reviewed journals the only reliable sources? -- Evertype·✆ 17:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a good deal more to a language than a written grammar, as you no doubt know, and as Crow points out. It isn't my job to deal with content; it's my job to find reliable sources to write this article. That BCI claims that Bliss is a language isn't isn't in dispute. In fact multiple sources agree that BCI makes the claim, and then go onto dispute it in one way or another., and there are others. I tell you what though, let's ask for opinions at the reliable sources noticeboard WP:RSN. --Poule (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that only a superficial reading of those sources "shows" in any way that Bliss's status as a language is really disputed. Most of the arguments are criticisms of implementation, not discussion of the ontology of the system. I will try to summarize the three of these below. -- Evertype·✆ 18:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I must ask you to name the academics who have stated that Bliss is not a language and to give their arguments. Otherwise this is just an assertion on your part that the linguistic status of Bliss is "disputed" -- Evertype·✆ 16:35, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If you actually read the paragraph at the top of the "Blissymbols as language" section, I think it will answer your questions. – Quadell (talk) 16:43, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Sources have been given repeatedly. In fact, the ball is in your court.  If you want this article to claim that Bliss is a language, it is your first job to provide high quality indepedent references to support the notion that this is the accepted academic consensus on the matter. --Poule (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I should say that my interpretation of the Martine Smith article supports the assertion that 'Blisssymbols are not linguistic signs' - what I don't know for sure is if that is an argument against blissymbols being a language, thought it certainly isn't in favour of it. Failedwizard (talk) 16:58, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't read the Martine Smith article. I already said this. -- Evertype·✆ 17:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't put that clearly - *because* you can't read the article, I thought you might be interested in what it said :) Failedwizard (talk) 17:36, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not going to take Martine out of context. -- Evertype·✆ 18:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think Bliss is tangental to AAC. In fact, PCS and similar systems owe, historically, their existence to the previous existence of Bliss. (In fact their non-linguistic elements are extremely useful for some users, and those types of users had trouble with Bliss.) -- Evertype·✆ 16:46, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This is why Bliss is mentioned so prominently in the History section, and other sections as well. But we can't give discussion of Bliss too much undue weight. – Quadell (talk) 16:49, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Bliss isn't tangential, but the language status of Bliss, given that it is disputed, is.--Poule (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have been able to review two of the three articles. Whatever Martine Smith may have said, I am certain (because I have met her and she introduced me to the Bliss community) that she does not hold the view that Bliss is not a language (and so does a prominent AAC worker in Oxfordshire whom I spoke with a little while ago). But I cannot see her article. I read the Crow article, too, and in it I did not find a discussion of the grammatical features of Bliss. There was same criticisim of what Crow sees as apparent "inflexibility" in the process BCI uses in vocabulary development, but no argument that Bliss was not in fact a language. And as I have said, the sentences in Unger certainly do not amount to a reputation of the description of Bliss as a language. So my questions have not answered. So I do not agtree with either Poule or Quadell -- I see no reliable evidence that there is serious scholarly dispute about the linguistic nature of Bliss. And in order for such dispute to exist, it would have to show that the description of Bliss in the Fundamental Rules was flawed -- by showing, perhaps, that the tense and mood markers used for verbs are, somehow, not tense and mood markers. -- Evertype·✆ 17:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * So far as reliable sources on Wikipedia are concerned, it doesn't matter that you've personally met Martine Smith, and it doesn't matter whether you are "certain" of what her views are. It matters what can be verified about what she actually said. I'm sorry you can't read the article, but I've offered to e-mail it to you, and I'm not sure what else I can do to help you. – Quadell (talk) 18:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought that when you said that you could e-mail it to me it meant that you were going to e-mail it to me. I suppose you wanted me to ask you to e-mail it to me. Please e-mail it to me. -- Evertype·✆ 18:28, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. – Quadell (talk) 18:57, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

History
So two things with History - firstly there's a question concerning if it should be top of the article or not. But while browsing Sign_language today I found some interesting stuff, including the fabulous paragraph:

"In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a hablar a los mudos (‘Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak’) in Madrid. It is considered the first modern treatise of Phonetics and Logopedia, setting out a method of oral education for the deaf people by means of the use of manual signs, in form of a manual alphabet to improve the communication of the mute or deaf people."

Which I think would fit nicely in our history section (with appropriate attribution) and would let us use a beautiful picture of the book, such as this one, to illustrate the history section.

So my problem is that it's currently unreferenced, and I'm loathe to add anything uncited - my library is now closed and google isn't giving me much that's reliable - does anyone have any handy texts on deaf history that might support it? Also I'm generally asking if adding lots of sign language history is the direction that we want the AAC history section to go in? Failedwizard (talk) 17:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think there is something about sign language development in Europe at that period in one of the articles I have. But I agree that it isn't clear that we need that much about sign language history in this article. --Poule (talk) 19:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Brilliant! If something turns up that would be great - otherwise I'll do some old-school library research in the old school library. ;) Failedwizard (talk) 19:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * My inclination is to not include much here about the history of sign language. I don't think that it fits here, in an article about AACs.  I think there's a good case that the first AAC, as well as the most low-tech ever, was manual signs, and this article does a good job at supporting it.  As cool as the image and the information is, it belongs better in an article about sign language(s).  And because I've learned that I need to, I come at this from an expert's position; I was a sign language interpreter for over 15 years, and have been a fluent signer for almost thirty. Christine (talk) 20:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Christine. That's very helpful, and I agree that anything we include about sign language history should be very short.  Poule (talk) 20:16, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a consensus to me - if you do come a reference though - I'm sure that editors over at the sign language page would be glad of it :) Failedwizard (talk) 20:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I did find a reference, but it didn't really support the full sentence about the name of the book/content etc, so I didn't add it to the sign languaeg articles.--Poule (talk) 12:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

With the help of a spanish-speaking friend and the university of sevilla I've added a source to the relevent articles that at least confirms title, author and publication date - hopefully I managed it without falling afoul of Verifiability in the process :) Failedwizard (talk) 21:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * You've been doing a wonderful job on the history! Thanks! – Quadell (talk) 12:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Poole, I think, deserves all of the praise for the recent changes, and they are indeed wonderfull :) Failedwizard (talk) 14:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * So, are we happy with the history section as it is? Are more improvements needed before it's nominated for FA? – Quadell (talk) 21:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the encouragement, both of you. I haven't finished with the history section. You'll notice it stops rather abruptly in the 1980s! I hope to get to it tonight but I have other things to do as well. Of course, please feel free to work on improving what I have written to date, as I always find another pair of eyes useful.
 * I'd also vote for not rushing to FA, since I'd like to read through the article thoroughly again myself. In fact, I already have a couple of ideas of areas that are missing. Something about incidence of AAC users in the general population will be important. I have also thought in the past that it might be good to have some quotation/text boxes with some quotes from AAC users about their experience with AAC etc.  Other ideas may occur as I get to my read through. --Poule (talk) 21:52, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Just for clarification - I'm not sure if you mean improvements to the history section, or the article as a whole? Would it be possible to get people's insight in to how the FA process would treat this kind of article - I personnaly found the GA process was very pleasent and easy (mostly because Quadell did so much copyediting during the review I think)  and if the FA process is likely to be similar in terms of 'Here is a list of things for you to fix' then I'm all for it.  Also depending on the timescale I'm reasonably likely to have an amount of time to devote to chasing bugs. :) Failedwizard (talk) 07:35, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've heard the FA process can be difficult and frequently dispiriting. (Which is why I'm so happy to have multiple hands working on this!) I don't know for sure, since I haven't been involved in the FA process in years. I've seen questions like "What makes this XYZ website a reliable source?" commonly asked, which we would be vulnerable in a few places. – Quadell (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that FA is at a different level; also that you may have been especially lucky in getting Quadell for the GA! In my view, it is a good idea to clear up as many of the possible complaints  before the article gets there.  What sources are you worried about Quadell?  Let's try and change them for better ones. Poule (talk) 16:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Anderson is a personal site, though it's a fair review of high-tech AAC aids out there. Augmentative Communication, Incorporated, is now a dead link all the sudden. One Beukelman et al. survey is from 1985, a Danilov et al. study is from 1983, and a McDonald & Schultz one is from 1973. The Reichert Hoge & Newsome book is referenced five times without page numbers. Some "Beukelman & Mirenda" refs credit "Beukelman & Mirenda", the editors, and give a page number; others credit the author of the particular chapter, with our without page numbers. Things like that. – Quadell (talk) 19:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I replaced (and did some rewording) the 1973 refernece with a 2000 one, I don't have the Venkatagiri reference but if someone does that would be really good for working out which bits in the rate enhancement section it references - the 1983 one had me looking at the Unaided section for the first time in a little while - I'm aware that there is a general consensus that don't want to have too much content shared with the sign language article, but maybe we can have some stuff on tactile signing for people who are blind and deaf? I think the section needs a bit of work anyway and if there are no objections I'll give it a bit of a poke...Failedwizard (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Also, I've added a "to-do" list to the top of this article. I intend it to be a list of what needs to be done before it's ready for FA nomination. Feel free to add to it or cross things off. – Quadell (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's great Quadell. I'm sorry not to have finished the history yet, but real work and real life have intervened. I'll try to get to it tonight or tomorrow. Poule (talk) 16:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, real life is hitting me pretty hard on the images front - I've sent a few emails and called a few companies today about images but I'm aware they are all long shots... Failedwizard (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've done the bulk on this now, but have a couple more sources to look at. Quadell, I've added a 2009 book by Mirenda and Iacono to the list, and made some hidden refs to show where the cites should go.(Mirenda2009). If it is possible to add them, that would be great. --Poule (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see those. Where are they? – Quadell (talk) 13:10, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * History looks even more fabulous than before! Great stuff! ( also added the Mirenda2009 reference) Failedwizard (talk) 21:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

The "History" section is great (well-written, impeccably sourced), but it's getting a little long. Is it too long? Should we create a History of augmentative and alternative communication article, and summarize here? I'm not saying we should, necessarily, but I think it's something we ought to look at, especially if gets any longer. – Quadell (talk) 12:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I really like the history section at the moment, and I think that if it gets much longer (which it easily can) it might get a little unbalanced but I feel relatively strongly that if we are going to spin anything off it should be the user-groups section. :) Failedwizard (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It isn't going to get any longer, and hopefully it will get a bit shorter when I reread it again as a whole. But I think I will do that at the end to get a bit of time away from it.  BTW, the more I think of it, the more I think we at least to try having it at the bottom: it mentions too many concepts without explanation, and having it later will make the flow better. I have other ideas for a brief lead-in to the aided/unaided stuff. --Poule (talk) 23:34, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I should say I completely oppose having it anywhere other than the start of the article. Would it be a reasoanble compromise to say that if FA say move it we move it (because I assume the referees know what they are talking about) but otherwise it stays? I think we can recognise that it seems to just be a case of two different personal preferences. :)  Failedwizard (talk) 07:22, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I don't actually think this is a matter of personal preference, since the style guidelines for some similar articles suggest exactly this. And I don't think it is a good idea to just wait for the FA review either.  I will make a change at some point and then you and others can see how you like it, when you see the proposal.   It can always go back to this order if that is the general preference.  --Poule (talk) 13:21, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, can you point me the direction of the style guidelines? If there is a clear policy I'm all ears :) but I'd rather you didn't move it, it the same way you were against spinning out the bottom section. :) Failedwizard (talk) 13:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Archiving
Just to let people know, I've added an archive page for nine of the sections that haven't been touched since 2009. Let me know if this causes problems for anyone. :) Failedwizard (talk) 11:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice, thanks! – Quadell (talk) 11:34, 14 July 2011 (UTC)