IncredABILITIES Steps of Success:

Step One: Beginning Communicator™

The child is introduced to the idea of communication exchange. He/she learns to exchange a picture card for one desirable item. He/she learns to pick the card up off of the table and hand it to an adult. No choices are given at this step. Maximum verbal and physical prompting is used and then faded in this step. This step is mastered when they have the ability to hand their card to their communication partner with the understanding that they are “requesting” the item.

Step Two: Rising Communicator™

The child is now required to pick up the card, stand up, and walk to their communication partner to request the item. Increasing the distance helps to teach the child that they must seek out communication. Only one specific desired item and picture card is used at this step. Maximum verbal and physical prompting is used and then faded in this step. This step is mastered when they have the ability to hand the card to their communication partner at a further distance, with minimum prompting, to receive their desired item.

Step Three: Intermediate Communicator™

The child is now introduced to making choices and pulling the cards from a book. The child learns to discriminate between two picture choices, then three picture choices. The Intermediate Communicator learns to discriminate by the utilization of a desired item and an undesired item. The child is given the item that he/she requests based on the picture he/she selects from the communication board. This step is mastered when the child understands what he/she is requesting by pulling a picture from a field of three and handing it to an adult at a distance.

Step Four: Blossoming Communicator™

The child is introduced to making more choices and placing the card onto a premade sentence strip to hand to the adult. The adult may select the correct page in the book corresponding to the activity or the child may be introduced to flipping to different pages in their communication book at this level. This step is mastered when the child is able to successfully pull the correct card for the desired item, place it onto the premade Blossoming Communicator sentence strip, and hand the strip to the adult.

Step Five: Advanced Communicator™

This is the final step of success. The child is able to flip through different pages in their book to seek out the cards reflecting their wants and needs. The child is also able to create a sentence on their Advanced Communicator™ sentence strip. Assistance and prompting is given in the form of color-coded sentence strips to help with sentence structure and creation at first. This step is mastered when the child is able to pull several cards from their book to create a sentence, such as “I WANT—COOKIES--PLEASE” with or without the color-coded strip.