Discrimination of lexigrams and traditional orthography by nonspeaking severely mentally retarded persons.
The discriminability of two abstract symbol sets by nonspeaking severely mentally retarded persons was investigated. Symbol-naive and symbol-experienced subjects' responses to traditional orthographic letters and lexigram elements were compared in a match-to-sample task. Overall, subjects' responses to lexigrams were more accurate and faster than were their responses to traditional orthography. Responses to less complex combinations of elements or letters, however, were more accurate and faster than were responses to more complex combinations. On the basis of these data, we conclude that the perceptual features of lexigrams are easier to discriminate than those of traditional orthographic letters.
M A
MA
Romski
R A
RA
Sevcik
J L
JL
Pate
D M
DM
Rumbaugh
D000328:Adult; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D013561:Symbolism