| dc.description.abstract | Tactile symbols are often used as a form of communication for students with complex support needs, specifically those that have comorbidity of blindness or visual impairment. Tactile symbols allow students to interact, communicate, and participate with their family, peers, and community. Tactile symbols are either individualized to a student or standardized within a classroom or school setting. There is no universal process around the selection process, purpose, and implementation of tactile symbols. Although this type of symbol is often used with students with such needs, the literature is limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study was a survey key school professionals’ and their experiences around the selection process of an individualized or standardized tactile symbol set for student's complex support needs and comorbidity of blindness or visual impairment. Descriptive statistics portrayed that the initial selection of tactile symbols for students with complex support needs were selected based on the student’s demographic and not the teacher's demographic, pre-service training, and background. A trend in the selection of an individualized tactile symbol over standardized symbols was also observed. | en_US |
