SALT dismissed ABA wants pecs - feel this will regress son?!

[Bananasinpyjamas1]

Hi, feeling depressed, I've been doing ABA myself for 2 months, and finally got some progress with my 3 year old, he asks for several things now and understands basic commands. I had his first SALT assessment today. She didn't like ABA, didn't assess him, asked few questions, just wanted him to start in Pecs to ask for things.

I explained that he was already verbally asking but she said all kids had to go through each pecs stage and he should be learning to give me cards instead. Surely this is going backwards?

I agree with you - if a child can speak then they should be encouraged to do so. This also happens to my daughter - she can speak but the is an obsession around using PECS whether the child needs that or not.

Thanks boden. I don't understand why pecs or salt cannot work where the child is at? My partner feels I'm dismissing the expert.

All the salts I have dealt with give the same advice which is irrelevant and not applicable to DS. When it comes to asd they are not experts (the ones I've met anyway). Her advice sounds terrible!

Bananas, go with your instincts. If your DS has made some progress then that's great, carry on with ABA if you feel that's the right way, or maybe ask for a second oppinion.
I hate when 'the experts' come and see our DC for an hour and think they know them best and don't even listen to what parents have to say...it's all about ticking boxes for some of them.
I lost count of how many SALTs my DD had, all useless..we never liked PECS, same reason as you, if she can make sounds, say some words, let's work on pronunciation and getting her to say more words as well as her understanding, not pointing.
Their argument was that it would take a long time to build up her vocabulary and get to express her needs and she would get frustrated. My argument was.. it would take a long time for her to get the concept of PECS and find the right combination of pictures to point at anyway, so we never used it.
Another annoying thing with the SALTs we had is that they have some old fashion pictures, very small and very badly drawn. Of course my DD wouldn't be able to point at a cat, because even I couldn't recognised the cat in their pictures :))

First thing I would be asking SALT is why she dislikes ABA and praises PECS - PECS is pure ABA!

Then I would ask where her deep prejudice against ABA had come from.

I sympathise, I had the same with my dd when she was small. I had her early years SENCO come around to kickstart PECS (dd1 was verbal, but fairly echolalic. She did have scripted/routine conversations though)

Session went like this:

Dd1 popped into her highchair (so she couldn't escape ), and blueberries were selected as the thing to ask for (dd1 would do anything for blueberries).

SENCO produces snack card (which confusingly had a picture of a biscuit on it!) and explained to dd1 what she had to do. Then put a small pile of blueberries just out of reach.

Dd1: oooh berries, mummy get it ready.

SENCO: I need the card

Dd1: berries. Berries please. Blueberries.

SENCO: card first,mthen berries (aside to me to ask for hand over hand prompting)

Dd1:( bewildered) berries. I see berries. Mummy get it ready (her equivalent of 'please' at the time). Mummy. Mummy get it ready. I like berries. Berries please.

And then she lost the plot, as she had asked and asked for the damn berries, nicely, waited well, could see them, but couldn't have them.

And that was that. I called a halt, as it was just horrible, and dd1 was asking effectively for what she wanted. Sure, she had other vocab issues, but my reasoning was we should work on getting her Using he right words, since she could talk, rather than handing over pictures of biscuits to get blueberries!

My thinking too! I was quite happy to take on advice / use pecs but really surprised at how rigidly SLT was. Why would I discourage my son from asking for things? It didn't make sense.

pandas the blueberries incident is nuts!

That is basically what this SALT is proposing - making my child learn how to hand over a card with a cookie on, when I've worked for 6 weeks already to ask for cookie verbally and he does!

I'm trying to be open to therapies, is there any good SALT for semi verbal autistic kids that takes account of their current speech level?

Is pecs always handing over cards for wants? Any other uses?

I think the PECS do encourage your child requesting for things...though this can be worked on in a number of different ways.

Pandas That's awful!

Bananas Makaton has been a Godsend for DS.

Yes my ds can't get pecs by he uses Makaton. His SLT is trying to get Makaton written into his ehcp

I think it's cost ehcp is the standard provision offered

Does he ask for things completely spontaneously verbally without any cueing or prompting? Does he do it consistently in a range of situations?

PECS is often used to teach the underlying purpose of communication, which is that by initiating communication (whether verbally or non-verbally), one can get something in return. PECS starts teaching this underlying concept visually first and the cues used are designed to be easily faded (to ensure the request is true initiation, rather than a response to an adult cue - an important distinction). It moves right up to the sentence level (there are several stages) and teaches the skill in a range of contexts. Commenting can also be targeted, not just requesting. The idea is to move to purely verbal communication once the underlying ability to initiate communication functionally in a range of situations has been established.

It is possible for children with ASD to be verbal and use language but still not have a true underlying understanding of functional communication. Perhaps this may be why your SLT has suggested PECS - it may be worth finding out more about her reasons before making a decision?

Yes he is asking for things spontaneously, and just starting to get the hang of this. I taught him by repeating the word with the item in a see through box. E.g. crisps. Which if you think about it, is like pecs but with the real thing! Eventually he got it.

The SLT wanted to just from the beginning of pecs, because 'that's how they learn pecs'. She had no idea that my son already asked for things, as she made no assessment. I told her, but the response was the same. Pecs. From the beginning.

I'd have no problem learning about how it is used for transitions, for sentence structure. But I am not going to get my son to hand over a card with crisps on when I've worked hard with him already and he actually says this!