Children and young people with communication disabilities, cognitive impairment and low literacy are at an increased risk of online abuse.
Scope’s Be Safe Online project aims to provide information about eSafety in accessible written formats to facilitate effective conversations about how to be safe online through the development of Easy English documents and communication aids.
During this project, Scope saw an opportunity to collaborate with valued partner, US based assistive technology company, Tobii Dynavox, to develop a customised set of Picture Communication Symbols (PCS). The symbols are designed to represent eSafety concepts such as cyberstalking, clickbait, consent, deepfakes and grooming.
There were initially around 80 eSafety concepts identified. Once the basic concept was consumer tested with people with low literacy, their feedback informed the final expanded library of 598 PCS. The images include a range of characters to represent diversity of age, sex and skin tone. This library of customised images will be used in the Easy English documents and communication aids that we develop.
To celebrate this milestone, and in honour of AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) Awareness month this October, we spoke to Rob Cantine and Jordan Cooper from Tobii Dynavox to learn more about their partnership with Scope on this important project.
Rob & Jordan: Why was partnering with Scope on the Be Safe Online Project important to Tobii Dynavox?
Tobii Dynavox was eager to partner with Scope because we understand the population that relies on our products is at greater risk of abuse and exploitation than the general population.
It is important to provide them with the tools to increase awareness and knowledge of eSafety, defend themselves from risks and advocate for their own safety.
Scope’s contribution to the co-design and creation of these symbols has enabled us to increase the offering we have to users worldwide and ensured we were targeting the correct vocabulary and concepts.
When was the first PCS symbol set developed?
PCS was created in the 1980s. We introduced the original core PCS library of 3,764 symbol in 1989. There are currently over 70,000 symbols available in our library. This work will add a further 500+ symbols, available anywhere PCS is featured including Boardmaker and TD Snap. It will mean that these eSafety concepts will now be easier to understand for the worldwide audience of people with communication disabilities, cognitive impairment and low literacy.
What are the plans for PCS in the future?
Tobii Dynavox is committed to increasing diversity in our symbols and will continue to expand the representation of diverse ethnicities, cultures and physical and cognitive abilities in the symbols we create, thereby increasing offerings for countries and cultures worldwide
We will add more symbols representing activities of daily living for people with disabilities; and continue to work with valued partners such as Scope, to seek feedback and increase coverage in topics important to our customers.
Scope thanks Rob and Jordan and all the team at TD for their support of this important work.
Keep an eye out for these new eSafety resources, available soon as part of Scope’s Be Safe Online project.
This project was funded through the eSafety Commissioner’s Online Safety Grants Program.
Scope Australia acknowledge the Commonwealth’s support of the Online Safety Grants Program and the eSafety Commission’s support of the “Be Safe Online” project.
PCS® is a registered trademark of Tobii Dynavox. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
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