Does PECs take away need / desire to talk

[cansu]

DD2 aged 5, ASD, has a few words and is making some slow progress with lang. She understands loads of single words and short phrases and can say about fifteen words, though she often says just part of word (ie first syllable. She understands PECs brilliantly but I push her to use the words she has at home rather than use her PECs. I have been told that pECs is the way to go and have also been shown a new electronic version of PECs where you press the icons you place on the sentence strip to get the words spoken aloud. My worry is that when we were using PECs loads she just handed over the strip, pointed to the icons and said NOTHING, even though they were sometimes words she could say. What do people think of this? Do you think PECS could make her less likely to progress with her expressive language?

Not sure but watching with interest!

Thanks Star - SALT and others see this as providing dd2 with a communication method. they also say other people may not always understand her words. I have done PECs training and know how it should be done. I used it with ds1 who is more severely ASD and although it has allowed him a means of asking in a very basic way for things he wants, it hasn't promoted any lang in him (though this may just be because he is more classically autistic). I am worried by her silence when PECs is in play. Maybe I need to give it more time - not sure. I get the impression that she finds PECs really easy, which is great, but also that she therefore doesn't have any need to further communicate using her voice.

DS3 was put on PECs as he was minimally verbal and had additional pronunciation issues so nobody could understand him.

We only really used it at home- school would take his file away as it was apaprenlty annoying- but it really did help develop his communication and his understanding of why he should bother- and that led to speech.

I decided very early on not to use pecs. My boy's autism and verbal dyspraxia gave him an incredibly low motivation and ability to verbalise - it was quite simply too much of an effort for him to talk. If I had given him an alternative (handing over a pic of juice, rather than painstakingly and painfully learning to say the word 'juice') he would not have bothered to learn to talk. I cannot, of course, prove a negative but I figured that very often people were recommending pecs because they thought either a) my boy wouldnt talk, so give him pix instead or b) pecs is the only thing I got taught in regard to autism on my salt course.
At the end of a long day, when dh wants an in-depth chat, if u gave me a choice of joining in the conversation or holding up a card saying "i agree, gd point" while secretly watching sex and the city, I wld go with the pic. To me, it's the same thing ! If your boy has words, I wld build on that.

Thank you for your good advice as usual. Sickofsocalledexperts - this is what I am thinking. Maybe I should get some cards made for me and dp! Not sure they would say 'I agree good point' though!! Star - I may well give it a really good trial before making my mind up. And you are right that I am definitely a bit half hearted with it at the moment.

DD2 was was pretty non verbal (maybe said 10 or so words), SALT put us on PECS and she really took to it. Within a month she was saying the word as she passed me the symbol and within about 4 months we ditched the PECS altogether. It seemed to give her the cue to talk that we needed. She is still delayed with her language but it's all done through speaking now.

sick of experts- can i ask how your DS chat is now?

this is an interesting thread... PECs definitely got ds1 to make the communication connection, to realise that he can interact, that he can request things.

But then, whilst I was on long waiting list for PECs training, I found we were accumulating cards but they just became a distraction for him, he was stimming with them a lot. I later realised that I wasn't moving him through the stages so perhaps he was getting bored.

Anyway, by then he had started vocalising a bit and we just gradually stopped using PECs. After about a month of ABA he's picked up some Makaton! I never thought he would, as copying is such a struggle for him, but it has happened.

I think PECs played an important role for us, but I'm glad we've ditched it now, as it became unwieldy and it was hard to be spontaneous with it.

My gut feel is that for most children they help rather than hinder. There seems to be a general rule that kids take the "path of least resistance" form of communication, and as speech is the easiest, if they can express a thing in speech as well as sign or speech as well as PECS, they'll generally use speech if they can, and if they can't, the other method is worth using because it allows them to do more. It's well documented that signing babies drop signs as soon as they can talk and there seems to be a fair number of kids using PECS who, once they have used PECS to grasp the process of communication swap the symbols for words fairly readily.

Where it falls down I think is where they are capable of speech but it's more effort than PECs, for whatever reason. In which case, I'd use with care.

I didn't use PECs properly (i.e. go through the earliest stages) with DS, but use of PECs helped DS to go from single/two word phrases to sentence length language surprisingly quickly, so it was very worthwhile for us. obviously our kids all vary though so I can only vouch for my DS's own experience.

Negligent mummy, my boy now has about 1000 single words and many 3/4/5 word phrases. He will never be Stephen Fry in terms of a conversationalist, but he is communicating using words. Perhaps the verbal dyspraxia is the difference and the reason why PECs didn't work for us - my boy has real difficulties forming words, and tends to miss off the last syllables or mispronounce. Therefore speaking really wasn't the easiest option for him, and pictures would have given him a chance to avoid learning to pronounce words, which he found very tiresome and difficult. If a child has no difficulties speaking words, perhaps PECs can give them the push they need. But very many people in the world of autism are using PECs cards as alternatives to speech, not precursors.

My ds is very similar to sickof ( I will have to kill her and get that name, i'm sorry). I do not like PECS either but that is just my experience and I know people who have had success - the real problem is not PECS but misguided enthusiasm for PECS

to sickof's ds i meant though will be starting her idea for SATC !