PECS and visual support

[claw3]

Ds 5.5 is verbal, has good vocabulary and a good memory, but has problems communicating his needs, asking for help and remembering names, recalling earlier events etc.

He is very visual ie he describes things and people, rather than referring to them by name.

It seems the school have started to recognise this and it would appear have given him 3 basic cards. (i havent seen these, so only what ds has told me)and have basically given him the cards and told him what they are for.

One with a smiley face on = i want help, he then has to explain what he wants help with.

One with an elephant on = permission to go and see his mentor.

One with a toilet on = i want to go to the toilet (this was suppose to mean, that he had soiled himself and needed his wet wipes and change of trousers that the teacher has and help)

These cards were put together by SENCO with no involvement from SALT.

I will be having a meeting next week to discuss this and would like to go with as much information as poss, as i currently know very little.

Moondog has already supplied me with a link to PECS.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

LOL well if you are a Huxley to Moondog's Darwin, i dread to think what i must be.....a teletubby perhaps!

He he, you ladies are great.
My work here on MN is done.

Claw, I like the organised mum calendars best as big and clear and nicely designed. Also come with handy little stickers as well which aptly demonstrate that visual strategies help us all.

Social Stories great for kids who find it hard to 'get' what to do in regularly occuring situations too-provide explicit instruction in story format.

Ignore autism reference-they are appropriate for anyone with social skills issues (which probably means all of us eh?)

oooh, moondog, have been meaning to start a thread to catch you.

have recently started building up to whole calendar thing with my dds - currently I tell them a story about "two little girls" and what they got up to (strangely exactly what we did over the day ) over the course of their day.

anyway, this is all with a view to entries on a calendar/ticking off the day etc. and last week i came across this

it's absolutely fab - prints out a neat little picture of your day's activity (either bluetoothed form phone camera, or will take camera cable too), handily onto sticker paper, and is a good size - big enough to see what's going on, but smalll enough for use on a (large-ish) calendar. the dds love it, and it really helps dd1 set things that have happened (she is photo mad anyway, which is why I got so excited by it) and it prints in 10 secs or so, so we can print it out while talking through the story - really brilliant for capturing imagination/interest.

Lovely! Super idea!
Don't 'build up' to the calendar though-just do it (start at the beginning of a month).

ah well, bedtimes are a flashpoint atm, and so no big changes at any one time...

we now have the story and the pictures, and so a LOT easier to intro the calendar.

tbh, without the build-up dd1 would have been too resistant to the idea to make it work - now we are just storing her collection of photos

Thanks Moondog, i have ordered the planner for next year, had to settle for a Top Gear one for 2009 couldnt find a 2009 anywhere.

I have bookmarked the link for social stories and have also order a social stories book which someone else suggested to give me some ideas.

I will have to stop talking to you now, its costing me a small fortune

lol at Top Gear calendar!

One more potentially costly idea for you...

Carol Gray is the queen of social stories.Here is her website.

How can you get hold of those what - why picture stories?

OMG - I WANT at time timer!!!! For me! - probably for my MN use if nothing else but...

WOW. I would use it every single day for everything.