Word recall & frustration

[mymatemax]

DS2 hasn't seen a SALT for months & provision is Suffolk IME is dire so I'm looking for some advice please.

He was very delayed but has improved hugely in spurts since about 3.5yrs.
He does have a problem with remembering words & i'm not sure if its getting worse or if he is just noticing it himself & showing it in frustration & lately if he struggles he just gives up & you've lost him.

Any advice, what would a SALT be doing to help if they were available?

Does he use PECS? It can help at a certain stage I think but he might be past that iyswim.

No, other than using PECS cards/symbols to help with toilet training & visual timetables at school.
I don't think i'd know were to start with PECS as a language tbh.
We did start Makaton but his speech kicked in & he hadn't picked up the signs anyway so it tailed off.

private SALT recommended PECs to me to help S (who has speech but v delayed) with his word retrieval. you can use individual pecs to build up sentences - and if DS isn't averse you could make a little book or keyring of symbols to take around with you of common words that he needs but has difficulties in recalling. E.g. DS has in his book (amongst others) symbols for "I", "want","blackcurrant juice","please", so I started by pointing to each of these to help him form the sentence, then eventually just getting the book or saying "I" myself would help him remember the rest of that sentence

Thanks I think PECS or any picture cards tbh could help, I thought we'd gone past that stage but I'll give it a go.
Just now for example he wanted his dummies & I'd moved them he came to me & said "I want er er er er er er, oh er er" Then collapsed in a heap of tears on the floor.
So I started trying to guess what he wanted & each time I made the wrong suggestion he became more upset, eventually ds1 said Dummies.
Yes ds2 said, dummies.
He has the vocabulary & sentence structure but completely looses words.

Having never used PECS, I would try Makaton or Signalong. At least he may be able to use the sign, and they are portable!!

the do2learn site has quite a few free ones to print off. or if you want isn't in there you could always just take photos of the RL objects/places.