The paper examines the use of concrete symbol systems to make the transition from presymbolic to formal symbolic communication for deaf blind students. Comments focus on expressive use of concrete symbols and address two issues requiring further research: (1) the critical features of referent objects, concrete symbols, and concrete symbol arrays that must be considered in designing an initial symbol system; and (2) methods for moving systematically towards more conventional and abstract symbol systems. Referents, concrete symbols and symbol arrays are discussed in terms of frequency, number of distractors, specificity, and iconicity. The report offers potential training sequences to enhance the systematic progression from concrete to formal symbolic systems. (CL)