Talk to me about PECS

[Madoldbird]

Hi ladies

I wonder if i can mull something over with you all.

DS (18m) is very likely on the autistic spectrum (no diagnosis yet,but the Early Intervention Team have told us he is "very typical" of a child with autism) he has GDD and a (as yet) undiagnosed chromosomal abnormality. The SALT has told us she anticipates him needing to use alternative communication methods for some time to come, i.e until at least when he goes to school.

We have been invited to a whole load of courses (e.g. DH has just started Earlybird)and we went to the introduction to PECS yesterday. I was really looking forward to it, as i thought it would be a great tool to use. However, to my surprise, i began to feel more and more aprehensive the more i heard. I started to feel that it was just about "training" (their word) the child, and not about facilitating communication. I know it is a very behavioural approach, but i felt the children seemed more like they were "performing" due to being given sweets / chocolates etc, rather than initiating anything themselves. It didn't help that we were shown a very old american video!

Anyhow, i'd just love to get the opinions of anyone with experience of PECS. I hear it gets great results, and i'd really like to hear any positive stories - i'm quite happy to have my feelings changed

I obviously want to do the best for DS, and so if this would be a good thing for him, then i'd be happy to set aside my own reservations.

All thoughts and opinions welcomed

It's a very individual thing - ds did not really take to PECS but I know parents in real life and on MN who have had success with PECS. I think the problem with PECS is that it is over marketed as the solution whereas it may only work for certain children in certain circumstances and you need to be sure it is working for you as a family before being convinced to take it further.

I would agree with willow, for some people it is brill, not for others, there are other options, maybe worth exploring signing with the S&LT?

Since I have already posted on someone else's thread on PECs...
I am a professional and not a parent but have a very similar view to the other posters. It is all about what works for your child and what they can easily access as a functional communication system.
There is some more recent research into early intervention for toddlers at risk for ASD that advocates trying first for speech or speech sounds (again quite behavioural but far more socially interactive than PECS) and if after 12 weeks there is no progress you would then look at a flow chart and assess a child's skills (imitation vs visual processing abilities) to see whether to introduce PECS or sign. (ESDM, Rogers and Dawson, MIND institute, CA)
Makes sense really as PECS for a very young child, although it can be extremely effective, doesn't really focus on developing joint attention skills and other pre language skills.
Hope that makes sense!!!

Gosh ,that's a lot of erroneous information there RGO.
How well acquainted are you with PECS and what is your professional background?

Very well acquainted thanks, and am not going into my professional background as I am not in here to advertise, save to say I am in the mddle of my professional doctorate looking at EI approaches, I am not on here to argue.

My comments regarding research done by MIND is not erroneous, nor are my comments on PECS and having worked with both PYRAMID extensively over the past few years and then training with MIND and Dr Rogers over the summer- i know first hand that borh approaches can be extremely effective.
I was merely trying to help

I'm certainly not a PECS guru so my observations are not based on extensive knowledge of the PECS system but from the time I spent either doing PECs or studying PECS materials, I don't remember any emphasis on joint attention or joint referencing. Also I am still a member of the PECS Yahoo mailing list which is used mainly by professionals/teachers/SALTS in the US who are very much PECS fanatics. They often advise that any communication except PECS should be ignored and that only PECS requests should be 'honored' as they put it (and spell it !). It horrifies me to read that a child asking for something will be ignored until they hand over a PECS card. I can't see how blanking a child's communication is going to build up confidence with any form of language or help build shared attention.

I am parent with no professional background whatsoever, who used PECs not as a communication system in itself but more as a visual support, so take my opinion with the requisite pinch of salt.

My experience of PECs was using it as a means to an end, to use visual supports o get DS language up to sentence level from single words, rather than as the sole means of communication,so not really what it was designed for, but I found it very helpful indeed for DS, within ten days we went from a garbled parroted "havva more juice" to "I want more x/y/z".

In terms of the behavioural approach - the requesting IME does tend to be the first stage in communication for those with language difficulties, it would be standard advice for those not using PECs but spoken words to encourage a lang delayed child to speak by setting opportunities for them to ask for food/toys/activities etc. I wouldn't be put off by the fact that it seems behavioural, it's human nature that we need incentives to perservere with something we find hard.

Good luck whichever way you go in working on DS's communication!

I am not knowledgeable about this at all really, but I know of a friend of a friend, sorry bit convoluted, who uses both pecs and signing very successfully with her ASD little boy. I always assumed that finding a combination of strategies which works for you and your child is the way forward.

I hope you get some useful advice

I think visual support for sentence structure is not PECS though (at least according to their protocols). PECS card exchange is the behaviour being taught not building up verbal sentences. I love your approach though TC - that sounds like what parents expect PECS to be but isn't !

Hi, we started using PEC's with dd2 when she was 2, i was worried at first as i thought it would just give her a reason not to talk. We started using food, she picked it up very fast and after a few weeks was using it to ask for toys at nursery (the nursery had a lot of konwllage of PEC's), within 6-8 months she was talking whilst using the PEC's (single words) and a few month after she started linking words ('i want biscuit'). She's now 4.10 and is talking in short sentances, she still uses the PEC's at school as her speach is not always clear and she tends to whisper.

PEC's has been a great tool for us and a lot of people find it helps with communication and speach.

Thanks all

Have only read quickly through the posts as i'm at work, but a lot of food for thought, thank you. I'll have a proper read later, but didn't want you to think i'd disappeared!! It's great to have a range of opinions.

My view is that my non verbal ds2 loeved the pictures but preferred to play with them than communicate with them so PECS didn't really work for us, although I'm still willing to try it again when he's older. We've just started sign language training which is definitely more effective in ds2's case, however as he's orally dyspraxic, not on the AS that's not really relevant to your question.

He does sometimes bring us pictures of things he wants but more often just wants us to name out all his PECS images and sorts them into piles. Thankfully I didn't pay for a system, simply made my own with printouts of things he'd recognise and some plastic book covering stuff and velcroed them into a folder... probably the best way to try it out if you're unsure as at least you haven't laid out more than a few quid expense if it doesn't suit.

"I started to feel that it was just about "training" (their word) the child, and not about facilitating communication"

Pretty much all approaches for autism train or direct the child one way or another.
When a SALT first grabbed DS hand and made him put a jigsaw piece in against his will I was shocked - but you get over it, because if you don't make him do things he would never try them and he would never find out that actually he does like a lot of them.

PECS or other behavioural methods are trying to teach the motivation to communicate which is often absent with children with autism.
So behavioural methods including PECS teach that contingency if you do x you will get y. Its teaching the expectation if you use speech to ask for something you will get what you want.
Children with autism don't automatically get this, eg even when DS got some speech he would ask for things when there was no-one in the room to hear him

Once the child grasps the do x get y idea you gain a tool to motivate the child to do things they otherwise would not do.

Other children have motivators too but these are usually more acceptable eg social praise, wanting peoples attention. When we go to work we are usually motivated by something tangible eg wages rather than pure satisfaction

For autism you don't have nice cosy motivators to start with so you do actually have to use objects and treats. Because thats what the child is interested in. But once you have taught the idea you can replace the objects for social rewards eg hugs and tickles or songs. It is training but in a good way.

We did not use PECS we did ABA (behavioural method) and waited 3 months first and DS actually starting using speech within a few days. We still use visual prompts to teach phrases though. We would have used PECS if ABA methods on their own had not worked.