The physical arrangement of means and goal objects in the child's environment, and the pictures of these



We've rearranged the positions of the wardrobe and the underwear drawer so that the latter is the closer one to the unclothed person picture.
This reflects the order of actions in actual dressing or undressing. First one dons underwear and then one dons the outerwear, the shirt, trousers, blouse and skirt etc.
Or, first one doffs the outerwear and then doffs the underwear

To rationalise or make ergonomic this order of processes the actual underwear drawer could be closer to the naked person and the outerwear storage place further away.

The process could be extended to all situations like this, although to do so might be highly impractible and expensive. Still if we really want to help the S/N we should do it. After this the corresponding arrangement of symbols will be seen to be a true reflection of the actual situation and easier to understand??

For example one goes into the toilet,

lifts skirt up,
pulls the knickers down,
sits on the toilet,
defecates and urinates,
wipes the bottom with paper from a holder,
throws the dirty paper in the toilet bowl,
flushes the toilet,
pulls up pants,
goes to the washbasin,
washes the hands with soap and water,
dries the hands with a towel or a hand dryer.

The things to be used, (ingredients if you like), are stored1* in places close to the places they will be used, (collect the ingredients and then use them, in the 'method'), for economy of effort, or other reasons. So the toilet paper is kept in a holder next to the toilet bowl, because this is where it will be used, and one wants to reduce effort, and one doesn't want to walk around with a dirty bottom to get the toilet paper to clean your bottom, and one would be walking around awkwardly with your trousers round your feet unless you took them off entirely.
The soap is kept close to the wash basin used to wash one's hands.
The large objects, i.e. wash basin, and toilet bowl are also placed or sited close to one another, for the same reasons. e.g. it isn't ergonomic or hygienic for someone to walk to a distant wash basin with hands dirtied from wiping his bottom, possibly having to open closed doors with those hands etc.

Note*
I write store1 or stored1 to represent the store place closest to the place of the activity which uses that object. A more remote store place, for things which are used less frequently, or which exist in bulk, will be coded as stored2 or store2.
For example ------

Another consideration in the arrangement of objects is for this to relate to the order in which one does, or should do, the activities associated with those objects.

So one enters the toilet room, sits on the toilet, washes the hands, dries the hands and then exits.

The large fixed objects could be in a linear pattern to reflect this, with a door to enter, and a different one to exit, (but this is getting a bit silly), or in a circular one to reflect this etc.
A circular arrangement wouldn't be too silly perhaps. The direction could be quite similar to a left to right one, and the same door would be used for entering and exitting. Space would be more properly, or more conventionally used, as in a normal shape of room, which would be rectangular but with a 'circular' arrangement of large objects in it.


The photos of the places would obviously reflect this ideal arrangement.

As for the activity photos these might start off in an early stage by being sited by the objects importantly used in the activities.
If the actual objects are arranged in a linear pattern, this would ensure that the activity photos are also arranged in the correct linear arrangement to correspond to the order in which the activities should be done. This makes things very easy for the child, he finds the pictorial instructions of what to do in a place right by that place. He walks from one place to the next in order and sees the pictures in the same order. So he gets the idea of a sequence of activity photos, or other pictures. The spatial linear order could be L to R, corresponding to the way we will arrange the activity pictures when we go on to the more advanced stage where the activity pictures are divorced from positions close to the objects importantly used in the activities, not disposed through the environment, gross motor style but collected together in a book or similar.

This L to R spatial order, symbolic of the temporal relations of 'before' and 'after', would also correspond to the L to R order of letters and words in many written languages.
(Although there is another argument which would say that an order of activity pictures from just in front of the child to further away from him, going directly forwards or ahead, would be better, and more naturally symbolic of the relations of 'before' and 'after'.)

As usual, of course, once the activity photos were put in place, if we are talking about the stage where the activity photos are disposed our throughout the g.m. environment, we would need to re-take, and re-site, place photos, to be accurate depictions of the places.

The activity photos themselves, shewing activities occurring in particular places, might be retaken also. This is an infinite regress however and we must stop very early in the process, or we would be in danger of losing our mind!

Consider a sequence Sz of (large) objects, relatively close together, and in order, since they are all used in a certain process, e.g. using the toilet and washing and drying your hands afterwards. An object O2 in this sequence Sz might also occur in another sequence Sx. Do we use the same actual object or just the same type of object?
To use the same actual object may complicate the clear idea of a sequence. Duplication of objects in the same class may work against the idea of a general class of objects, but give a clearer idea of concrete sequences. For example the washbasin used to wash your hands after using the toilet and wiping your bottom might be one thing and the washbasin used to wash your hands after doing some gardening might be another.
The 'en suite' idea.

Consider the process of getting ready for bed. This is a sequence of events/ activities such as:-

1. enter the bedroom
2. take day clothes off
3. put them away to be used the next day or to be washed
4. use the toilet to urinate or defecate
5. wash your hands
6. shower
7. clean your teeth
8.put night clothes on
9. get into bed
10. sleep

Call this process P3+

There is a reverse process, the mirror of this, so:-

1. wake.
2. get out of bed
3. take night clothes off
4. put them away to be used the next day or to be washed
5. use the toilet to urinate or defecate
6. wash your hands
7. shower
8. clean your teeth
9. put day clothes on
10. exit the bedroom

Call this process P3-

Of course each of these sequences is one of many possible sequences. It may not be the one the child uses naturally. It is perhaps a good one to select as a teaching goal, it is a prescription rather than a description.

The above two sequences could be put end to end to form a linear sequence, and then everything would need to be duplicated, apart from the bed, which joins the two sequences. Even the door to the bedroom would need to be duplicated, one for entrance to the bedroom, and one for exit.
If we arranged things linearly but bent the line into a circle, we could avoid the necessity of duplicating the door also. But the concept of reverse processes would not be demonstrated.

If we compare P3+, and its reverse, P3-, we notice something interesting.
The reverse sequence P3- contains some events, activities, (or really sub-processes), which are the reverse of corresponding events, activities, or sub-processes in P3+.
But in some cases this is not true, e.g. in both P3+, and P3- the individual defecates in the toilet, washes his hands, and so on.
He does not dirty his hands, or sit on the toilet and have faeces jump up from the bowl and enter his anus, as happened to the Cat at the end of the Red Dwarf episode 'Backwards'!
What are the implications of this fact?
The washbasin has as a function or use that of washing the hands, or face, making them/it clean. But it does not possess the opposite function, of dirtying the hands, or face.
In human physiology the anus has the function of expelling faeces, defecating, but not the opposite function of drawing faeces up into the anus, e.g. from the toilet bowl.
This cannot happen unless we can reverse the temporal flow, as is inconsistently portrayed in the above mentioned Red Dwarf episode, but we are not concerned here with science fiction, or maybe science phantasy.
So the sequences discussed above are mixed. Does this pose problems for the child?

Sequences of events with various objects, forming a process
Ist stage
--->use object o1 in manner o1m1------->use object o2 in manner o2m1--------->use object o3 in manner o3m1------

For example:-
enter the toilet room via door1, drop your trousers, defecate, wipe your bottom, wash your hands in the washbasin, dry your hands, pull up your pants, exit the room via door 2

Here objects are used in only one way, e.g. a door to enter a room, and a different door to exit it, etc
So it might be easier for the child to grasp, it's a one way process.

2nd stage
--->use object o1 in manner o1m1------->use object o2 in manner o2m1--------->use object o3 in manner o3m1 <---use object o1 in manner o1m2<-------use object o2 in manner o2m2<---------use object o3 in manner o3m2
Here an object can be used in more than one way, e.g. a door can be used to enter a room, or to leave, exit it, a bed to get on to, to lie on and maybe sleep on, or to wake up on, and get up from etc

Here the concepts of reverse processes, involving two uses of the same object, and reverse/opposite uses or functions of the same object, is made concrete.

Of course to get a more abstract and more general concept of reverse processes the child will have to be given experiences of a variety of different specific processes and their reverses, and a variety of specific objects having a use u2, and the opposite use, -u2.
For example:-
a case can be opened, (put into the condition or state of openness), or it can be shut, (put into the condition or state of shutness), (passive case), or a person can open it, or close it, (active case)
a shirt can be put on or taken off, (passive case) or a person can put it on, or take it off, (active case)
A door can be open, or closed, can be opened, or closed, (passive case), or a person can open it, or close it, (active case)
Ignore, for simplicity, the ajar possibility.
To go through the door it needs to be open, if closed this action with the door is impossible
and so on.

Consider this:-

Condition, activity A

I am watching TV, a DVD, in the lounge sitting on an easy chair.
After a while I need to defecate, and so pause the DVD, go upstairs to the toilet, enter, drop my trousers, sit on the toilet, defecate, wipe my bottom, pull up my trousers, wash my hands, exit the toilet, go down the stairs, enter the lounge, (re-)sit on my chair, and (re-)start the DVD.
I have recreated the original condition/activity A. That is:-
Place: the lounge
Players: Me
Activity/Actions: I am sitting on an easy chair, watching a DVD, a silent classic, 'Tne Eagle', with Rudolf Valentino

This original condition, did not just have as characteristics, a place, an activity and a person, the player.
Some less obvious ones were that--
I was sitting comfortably, with no 'puat khi'. The introduction of this feeling, the need to defecate, 'took me away from' the ideal/desired state, and so I needed to do something to get back to it. In this case the required action was to go to the toilet, defecate, and return to the lounge, re-sit, and re-start the DVD.
What about my washing my hands after wiping my bottom with toilet paper?
Another less obvious characteristic of the original state/ condition/activity is that my hands were clean
Therefore as another requirement to get back to the original and desired state I had to wash my hands and make them clean again after I had wiped my bottom and possibly got them dirty.
This is a sort of interruption scenario. The person has not finished, reached the natural end, the goal, of watching the DVD, (assuming he wants to watch it to the end).
This scenario would be appropiate also to going back to the lounge to watch a different DVD, but instead of restarting the first DVD, I would have to take out the first disk, insert another, and start to play the new one.
The person would have reached the goal consisting of finishing waching that particular DVD to its end, but has not finished watching DVDs.
It would also be applicable to going back to the lounge to start to do something else, e.g. to read a book. Here he has finished watching DVDS but still wants to do something in the lounge.

Observe that the objects/activities involved in possibly dirtying the hands, (toilet paper, the dirty bottom, wiping the bottom with the (?left?!)) hand, are not those which cleans them, (the wash basin dispensing water, soap etc).

In other cases the same object might be used in two opposed ways
Since the lounge is on the ground, or first floor, and the toilet on the second floor, to go to the toilet I ascend the stairs; on returning to the lounge I descend the stairs.
(Note here that just before ascending I am at the foot of the stairs, just before descending I am at the top, two different positions and orientations w.r.t. the stairs. At the foot of the stairs I cannot go down the stairs, while at the top of the stairs I cannot go up the stairs, unless the stairs go up to a third floor, which they don't in my little house.)
I drop my trousers before defecating, after defecating and wiping my bottom I pull them back up, I don't, and wasn't, watching TV in the lounge with no trousers on, (properly).
One's lounge might be considered to be a public, or semi-public place, so has to dress 'appropriately'.
The doors between lounge and toilet, must be gone through. From the lounge to the toilet I go through them one way, and from the toilet to the lounge I go through them in the opposite way.
As with the stairs, before going through a door one way I am on one side of the door, and facing the door, (so orientated one way), and when going through the door the other way I am on the other side of the door, and again facing the door, (therefore facing the opposite way)
Usually doors open one way only, and certainly do in my house in the UK.
If a door is closed, and one is on side Sa, to open it one might have to push the door;
if one is on the other side, Sb, if it is closed, to open it one would have to pull the door.
These possibilities are often written on doors, i.e. pull or push.

I wish to return to the previous state. This complete state includes location or place. To return to it I need to retrace my steps, to return along the path which took me away from it, going in the opposite direction.
Retracing my steps is a special case of undoing, or doing the opposite and getting back to the former state. The special case involves the place, or location. To get back to the original one I have to move in space, specifically retrace my steps.
The more general concept or class is 'doing the opposite action to the one which took me away from the desired state'. As well as including the spatial, retracing case it also includes cases like pulling my trousers up, after they were pulled down, etc.
(I define 'state' as
a place, (noun)
qualities of this, (adjectives)
a person or persons, (noun)
qualities of these, (adjectives)
an activity or activities, (verbs)
qualities of these, (adverbs) )

Note that 'undoing', since it applies to motor actions only, might be fine motor or personal-social or gross motor, to use the terminology of a test such as the Denver.
Retracing your steps, is gross motor, while, undressing, taking the same clothes off, after dressing, putting them on, is in the fine motor-adaptive classification, or possibly in the personal-social classification.
Note also that the 'undo' function is a feature of many computer card games such as free cell or solitaire. The 'undoing' does not take you back to a former time, courtesy of a time travel device! You do not return to the specific state or condition you were in in the past; rather you 'are taken to' a state/exemplar in the same narrow class as the state/exemplar which you were in previously, one whose time attribute is not of course the same as the previous state/exemplar.

Recall here the ideas concerning the toilet training of the little dog 'Lulu' in Korat, Isaan, Thailand.
And also the ideas of the plan etc.

Note:

Gaynor H. can be thought to reverse the process of opening my case to take out the test materials, from a memory of me doing this on this specific occasion, or from a general notion of reverse processes applied to this particular case, or maybe a bit of each.
Either way the motivation is to end the testing session, to get away from the present situation, an avoidance scenario.
At some stage the push might become a pull and the child is going to a desired state, an approach situation.

Really the idea of absolutes is not an accurate description of the psychological mechanism involved here. We do not seek out a condition, activity, place, person etc. which is absolutely good or desirable; we seek out a condition, activity, place, person etc. which is better than (for us), the one we are currently in.
This applies to the variables of person, place, condition, and activity. There is a process of comparison, the one state is relatively good, or bad, compared with the other.
For example, Amanda likes to be with person P3, and will go to, and want to stay with, him, in a group of other people. But if person P7 is present she will go to person P7, and leave person P3!



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