On communicative contributions and multimodality of onomatopoeic utterances: Towards activation of communication

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This study has investigated what linguistic factors contribute to activation of communication by people with intellectual impairments, and tried to find clues to effective methods which enable enjoyable communication. Focusing on auditory and visual stimulation, we observed music therapy sessions practiced at a school for special education. We have done discourse analysis of the video-camera recorded data, which led us to elucidate how communicative actions are triggered by onomatopoeic expressions and singing rich in sound symbolism and vivacious rhythm. More importantly, such activities seemed to yield comforting relationships as well, in which participants could easily share joy of music-rich communication.Based on the result, we experimentally produced and distributed some DVD teaching materials, which we hope would help the cognitively impaired people with their daily tooth-brushing routines. The validity of such teaching aids should be verified in further studies.