Linguistic and Cultural Challenges for a Bilingual AAC environment in the Arab region.

Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) can help those with a range of speech and language difficulties by providing alternative means of communication, such as the use of symbols to convey a message (Light & McNaughton, 2012) and enhance their quality of life (Hill, 2012). However, there have been some challenges in achieving this in the Arab region due to the lack of Arabic symbol inventories and the reliance on Westernised symbols (Hock & Lafi, 2011). As a result, uptake and the positive outcomes of using AAC have been limited. Tawasol symbols aim to bridge the gap with a freely available symbol collection that is culturally, environmentally, religiously and linguistically appropriate for the Arab AAC community. A participatory approach has been taken offering AAC users, teachers, therapists and parents the chance to collaborate in the design and development of all aspects of the project (Draffan et al 2015).

Introduction

E.A. Draffan1, M. Wald 1, A.I. Ahmad² , A. Kadous², N. Zeinoun3 , D. Banes, O.Sabia & D. Lawand ¹ University of Southampton (UK) Email: ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk , mw@ecs.soton.ac.uk² Hamad Medical Corporation (Qatar) Speech Therapy Dep. Email: aahmad2@hamad.qa , tullahk@hotmail.com³ Mada (Qatar Assistive Technology Center) Email: nzeinoun@mada.org.qaLogo for Tawasol Symbols

Symbols with thanks to ARASAAC http://arasaac.org/ & Tawasol http://tawasolsymbols.org/

As the AAC forum became more engaged so the data collected increased and comments relating to the symbols became more critical in particular where there were clothing types and body representations plus religious connections. Some voters felt very strongly about having Qatari clothing only and others felt that general Arabic dress was important in capturing the wider Arab population. It was decided that the dictionary would offer both options to suit the broadest range of Arabic AAC users with Modern Standard Arabic word lists supplemented by Qatari words for conversation as Arabic is a diglossic language. Morphosyntactic differences also impact on AAC communication board / chart layout with right to left orientation and different degree of representation of the various parts of speech. The participatory contribution of the AAC forum to this project has proved essential with early publication of results.

Draffan, E. A., Kadous, A., Idris, A., Banes, D., Zeinoun, N., Wald, M., & Halabi, N. (2015). A Participatory Research Approach to develop an Arabic Symbol Dictionary. Studies in health technology and informatics, 217, 796-804. Hill, K. (2010). Advances in augmentative and alternative communication as quality-of-life technology. Physical medicine and rehabilitation clinics of North America, 21(1), 43-58.Hock, B. S. &Lafi, S., M. (2011). Assistive Communication Technologies for Augmentative Communication in Arab Countries: Research Issues. UNITAR e-Journal, 7(1), 57-66.Light, J., & McNaughton, D. (2012). Supporting the communication, language, and literacy development of children with complex communication needs: State of the science and future research priorities. Assistive Technology, 24(1), 34-44.

References

Conclusion

Initial symbol voting resulted in only 3.4% of the chosen ARASAAC symbols being marked by Arabic voters as having 'good' cultural sensitivity for their environment. As new symbols were created the symbols' cultural acceptability increased to an average score of 4.14 out of 5. Voting continued at 6 monthly intervals with increasingly constructive comments and maintenance of acceptance levels (4.03 out of 5). A set of criteria were developed to aid future symbol designs. Initial word lists collected increased over 18 months from 609 Arabic AAC words to over 1,500. Comparison of Arabic AAC to English 55% - 27% nouns but 29% English verbs compared to 16% in Arabic and pronouns (8% -2%). Impacts on correct symbol positioning on charts to encourage literacy skills.

Funded by an NPRP award [NPRP 6 - 1046 - 2 - 427] from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of The Qatar Foundation)

AAC Forum voters selected a freely available symbol set to suit those already in use. A voting system was created for symbol acceptance. Comments were used to build criteria for future symbol creation. Word lists were collected in Qatar and compared to Arabic lists for literacy and language. Frequency of use and parts of speech were compared to English AAC lists to create AAC charts

Method

Results

Criteria for Designing Culturally Appropriate Symbols - Arabic

Symbol Creation Process

Vocabulary Collection Process

• Consider culture & religion• Include religious holidays, customs, local landmarks

& food

• Use local currency• Less greenery in the environment

• Darker physical features • Facial hair for adult males• Limit mixing and show of affection with opposite sex

• Consider culture and religion• Include religious holidays, customs, local landmarks

and food

• Use local currency• Less greenery in the environment

• Flip symbols to follow Arabic sentence orientation• Male and female versions for each symbol• Differentiate dual and plural symbols

• Qatari females: Abaya and Shela (all hair covered)• Qatari males: Thobe and Ghutra• General Arab dress code: Hijab and modest clothing