ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors selected two children who were functioning at a non-verbal level and who were either ineffective or failed to make demands on their environment. Many children function at a very basic level of communication, and lack the prerequisite skills for acquiring complex systems of signing or speech. The Communication Behaviour Rating Schedule developed by the project to guide teachers' observations on children's non-verbal communication, provided useful information about their range of communicative behaviours. Mentally handicapped children, particularly those at the lowest levels of functioning, cannot be expected to learn a non-verbal communication system unless all the key figures with whom they come into contact know the basic signs, can understand and respond to the signs produced by the child. The Communication Behaviour Rating Schedule provides a simple means of enabling teachers to identify communicative behaviours exhibited by the child.
