TEACHING FUNCTIONAL USE OF AN EYE GAZE COMMUNICATION BOARD TO A CHILDWITH MULTIPLE DISABILITIES

Eye gaze may represent a viable mode of communication for children wit h multiple disabilities, yet there are few empirical studies on teachi ng its use. In this study, a young boy with severe physical and modera te intellectual disability was taught to request missing items by look ing at photographs on a transparent ETRAN chart. Initially, the child was taught to request the missing headphones when given a cassette tap e and a portable tape player, so that he could then listen to music. A request consisted of looking at the correct photograph from a set of four. Verbal and gestural cues were used to prompt correct requests in itially. When a 30 second time delay was added, requests occurred with out prompting during more than 80% of the opportunities. Following acq uisition of this initial response, some requests for the other two ite ms occurred when these were withheld. The results provide empirical su pport for existing, yet mainly descriptive accounts of eye gaze commun ication.