picture exchange for possible autistic daughter.

[Crawling]

The speech therapist has reffered dd on to a picture exchange or something where dd gives a picture to express her needs. Well im actually quite shocked as dd was referred a fortnight ago and i alfeady have her appointment in two weeks.

Has anyone experience of this? What do they do exactly? And was it a good help for your dc?

Picture exchange is a great way to get start

This might interest you. pecs

Thank you that is very helpful.

Our SALT started dd on this a while back, dd had absolutely no interest. However we persevered and she has now started getting the pictures herself and bringing to us to request items. As dd is non verbal it just takes a lot if the guesswork out of trying to interpret the screams. We use this alongside the system of using pecs during play.
We don't use the line drawings given to us by salt though, instead we took photos of favourite objects eg toys, foods etc
These work much better for our dd as she seems to identify more with the actual photos.
I will say though that although this system is used to help encourage children to say the words, dd has not actually done this yet.

Fresh - my understanding of it is that you need to get right through the course before that can happen. I put a link on earlier in this thread spelling out the levels.

I have used PECS or Writing with symbols to help young children communicate effectively, once you have built up a bank of words you can then move onto requests, instructions etc, it can also be used effectively for social stories which are used to explain about different situations/anxieties etc.

Thanks all this is all very helpful. Finn and fresh can i ask as dd is reluctant to speak would this not make it easier for her not to speak? Maybe make her very dependant on the system ?

sally thanks, looks like we're still at phase 3, keep on perservering I guess!

crawling that is actually one of my concerns, but as I said at least it eliminates the guessing game to stop the screaming! I personally am not convinced of the effectiveness of pecs to help her speak but it's one of the things to try. However I totally understand that it does work for some, just not my dd......yet