Signing or pecs

[Phoenix4725]

This has come up a few times rectly so thought ask advice on here

Ds is 4 has GDD fuctions around 2 -2.6 .Has recptive laungae age of 2.7 and verbal and oral dyspraxio so is non veral just squeas grunts and ooooo. .At the moment we use makton and he can put 2 signs together sign colours etc big and little dog,car etc has about 130 signs andgrowing daily

But we see to berunning up against anti signing as he cant take it out with him less there someone to translate.There talking about using pecsn ot to encourage communication as he wants its more he cant.So after some advice please would they ay this to example to a deaf child hes doing so well with signing seems shame to not continue

pecs could be useful in the short to medium term to get his combination/sentence length up - so as a means to an end. is the idea that he would use both, or would stop doing the signing altogether?

no there talking of droping the signing , heis likely to remain non verbal they think .

Oh if we added the other signs think he would use them he picks them up fast but it seems battle going on between the professionals salt we have at moment is pro signing where school he due start are talking pecs

you can carry on using both

Ds1uses both (and anything else available to communicate - he's ten and non verbal). The advantage of pecs if you need something long term is that it's a step towards assisstive technology. I can't link now but I'll come back later and link to some examples.

ds tried pecs and picked it up very fast .i did the 2 da pec course but he does not need it for requesting eg he can sign want drink and has started to point to himslef so using I
yes please total choas we tried basic comunication device but ds got frustrated as was to slow with having to change the boardswas a 8 option card am considering looking at Itouch as fact he can scan through be better for him

oh ds is going to ms school be intresting how there going to cope even with lsa support

yes he could sign it quicker than pushing

ys ds has statement with what should be ft 1-1 yet to appoint anyone and it isin there that all staff must be Makton trained thank heavens for having a good salt she helped me nail their balls to tree with speech

I was going to suggest the itouch - DS1 uses some signs (not a lot because he has motor problems and imitation problems) and other quick methods such as pointing, shouting, dragging, sequences of pointing eg to pictures on the wall then to something else, but Proloquo2go has the advantage of being able to produce more complicated sentences - it pushes his language on in a way that single signs, and points etc don't. And is also aiding literacy. As he'll never talk if he's ever going to be able to communicate anything complicated he needs a different method- so symbols are a great support in that. Yes he can ask for biscuits with sign (as he often chooses to) but he can ask whether he's going to respite on Saturday using symbols, which he would never manage with sign.

/hijack
saintlydame - can you recommend any useful reading on teaching imitation (lady on another site has child with v. early ASD DX). thanks.

Most of the therapies have suggestions (eg copying the child- son rise) - to actively teach it we used ABA.

So you choose something which can be physically prompted

say 'do this'

do the action (eg clapping hands, putting a small toy in a small box etc)

wait for a response if no response

physically prompt (hand over hand)

reinforce

repeat.

We had to do it for years but once ds1 'got it' it made such a difference to his functioning and all sorts of things became possible for him.

many thanks, will pass that info on to her.

sorry, i'm late to this phoenix. it sounds to me as though both you and your son are happy with signing and it seems a real shame to close this avenue of comunication off to your ds.

even with deaf children, there are people who argue against signing. i'm a british sign language user who works with deaf children and i can't understand the negative attitudes that some professionals have towards signing.

bsl is a wonderful language, and yes, people who use it do need interpreters, but the most important thing is that they have access to a language which is accessible to them and which provides immediate communication and access to "inner-language" too. if sign language/makaton is doing the same for your ds, then i think it could continue to be an important part of his communication repertoire. good luck.

am wondering if s could make the switch from makton to bsl as were now bringing in my mine, yours ,you them and theres and hes can certainly get the right gestures with his face hes very expresionate

but then he does have issues with motor control so his signs are sometimes approxmations he has bastardised personlised it

I'm very pro BSL with children who are deaf. I'm not sure about it for children with LD's & GDD. Because it is a totally different language - so you would be asking your child to become bilingual (at least receptively). Using sign (such as Makaton) to support spoken English is another thing (yes go for it imo).

My view is that you use as many avenues as possible to communicate. This is what ds1 does now anyway - his choice of communication depends on what is available at the time and what will get his point across. If he can use vocalisation he will, or dragging and pointing, or sign, or PECS, or pictures, or reference objects or anything else lying around or a combination of all of these. His flexibility always impresses me.

phoenix: it does sound as if he's gradually using the more grammatical features of sign that you'd find in bsl. widening his linguistic experience like this must be helping him to develop his understanding of the world. if i'd thought that sign would have helped my ds's language disorder, i'm sure i would have used it. his difficulties lie in a different area though.

saintlydame: i understand what you mean about the possible difficulties of becoming bilingual, but i wonder if this being a more accessible mode for phoenix's ds would offset any confusion or complication that may arise? i'm certainly not an expert in this field, but he does sound as though he is making good progress!

he is suprising me in how quick hes grasping the signs am showing hm the once and he seems to remember it for eg last week taught him sign for black and yesterday used sign for have and today he used them both in right context though lol am checking he has sign for black going the right way
.

He is just so deperate to communicate really is mind like your ds saintly he will use what ever methodhe has to and if someone cant follow his signs he will drag them to it

for him we not sur eif talking will come or if does weather it be at ausefull level though of course any words be welcome.Thinksof all the cuss words he hears want to bet if does talk there be first

That sounds great Phoenix. Brilliant that he's picking them up so quickly.