News Flash

The city of Liberty Lake has installed a new resource designed to assist children with greater communication accessibility when they visit the play areas at Orchard Park.  

The new communication board created by Smarty Symbols was installed on March 25 in the highly visited area between Orchard Park’s splash pad and playground equipment.  The park is located at 20298 E. Indiana Ave. in Liberty Lake, and is the first open space area in the greater Spokane region to have one of the boards.

The large colorful display board is designed to assist parents and caregivers in their communication with children who may have difficulties in their language and speech development, such as those with autism disorders.  The board can also be used to help promote children’s general language development by having adults point to the symbols on the board and speaking the terms associated with the pictures and the written words.

The double-sided board contains 72 terms that are represented by colorful cartoon drawings.   The lower area of each side also shows the letters of the alphabet in keyboard arrangement as well as all 10 numerals.  Users may point to the 72 cartoon symbols that depict common nouns for persons (such as “Mom”, “Boy” and “I”), park equipment (including “Slide”, “Swing” and “Table”), basic verbs (including “Help”, “Drink” and “Stop”), as well as emotional states (including “Sad”, “Tired” and “Hungry”).  The 72 drawings associated with the words on the board are also color coded based on their form of speech; a green background is used for verbs and a purple background is used for question words.   

“The board is there to foster communication, social engagement, and active participation for people of all ages and abilities,” said Nancy Hill, who chairs Liberty Lake’s Parks and Arts Commission.  “We liked how inclusive it was and how it gives anybody an ability to communicate with a nonverbal person, whether it’s for an emergency or an everyday communication that could occur at the park.” 

A representative from Smarty Symbols conducted an online presentation about its communication boards for the Liberty Lake Parks and Arts about a year ago.  Not long after, the city’s Parks and Arts Commission voted to purchase the 48” x 30” aluminum board and vinyl framing for $2,830 to place at Orchard Park.

“We wanted to put one in one park and see what kind of community feedback we get,” said Nancy Hill, who chairs Liberty Lake’s Parks and Arts Commission.  “If it’s popular, we may add ones to Rocky Hill Park and Pavillion Park.”

Resources from Smarty Symbols were developed by a speech-language pathologist out of Rowlett, Texas, starting in 2014.  Further information about Smarty Symbols is available at www.smartysymbols.com.