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LaQuinta's page: **Picture Exchange Communication System** **(PECS)**

People who are nonverbal and / or have indistinguishable speech or who have trouble communicating their wants and needs; particularly children with autism who have delays in speech development.
 * __Who Benefits?__**

ThePECSwas developed in 1985 byAndyBondyandLoriFrost. The system was first used at a Delaware Autism Program, then it received well known recognition for its effectiveness when many preschoolers usingPECSbegan to develop speech.
 * __Developer__**

A Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is a form of augmentative communication (AAC) that uses pictures instead of words to help children communicate.
 * __Basics: What Is It?__**

It uses pictures and symbols displayed on a board or binder that a person can point to when he / she needs to say something.

A PECS symbol can be as simple as a hand drawn picture or a camera shot.

There are 6 phases. The following is an example for phase 1: A student gives a picture of a desired item to his / her teacher (cup of milk). The teacher, in turn, hands him / her the actual desired item (cup of milk).

In phase 6, the system becomes more advanced as the child learns to use their symbols to construct simple sentences. Six years ago, I worked in a classroom with children who have autism. Before I left, my students were in this phase.

Everyday, we started the day with a morning routine. The morning routine entailed going over our daily schedule. Since the majority of my students were nonverbal, they relied on PECS to communicate their wants and needs. Firstly, classroom staff presented each student with a picture of food items from the breakfast and lunch menu to find out what each wanted. Then, we talk about the day: the day of the week (i.e., Monday), date (i.e., October 5, 2011), the season (Fall), and what the weather was like (i.e., sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy), and which classes we had in order (from morning to afternoon). The last scheduled activity on the schedule was dismissal, which was represented by a picture of a school bus. The following pictures have been uploaded to give everyone a better idea of how we used the PECS in our classroom:



PECS can be made, or if preferred, purchased. The Picture This Professional Series comes with over 5,000 pictures and features a formatting program which allows any size cards to be printed. The cost for the series is $89.95.
 * __Cost__**

Visual Foods can be added on to the package for $49.95. The package contains pictures, menus, grocery shopping cards, etc.

The School Routines and Rules program comes with full photos of children doing various activities and school routines. The program costs $44.95.

Also, there is a Behavior Management program for $69.95. It shows children the difference between what behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable. For instance, there is a photo of a child yelling. The photo has a slash though it to let children know that yelling is not okay. The same child is depicted in another photo. However, instead of yelling, the child is symbolizing quiet time by putting an index finger in front of his closed mouth. This is the acceptable behavior.

· //Cost//- Training comes in 6 phases and is time consuming. · //Speech Delay//- Using non verbal communication makes it hard to attain normal communication abilities (i.e., delays speech in children with autism). More effort is put into helping children use PECS to learn – which, in turn may require parents and teachers to spend more time and money. · //Communication Limitation//- PECS become a limitation when children with autism make improvements in their ability to communicate because there may not be adequate picture cards to help the child communicate his thoughts; which may cause the people who work with him or her to misinterpret his or her needs and cause the child unnecessary frustration.
 * __Disadvantages__**

Click below to watch a video about PECS []

[|www.pecs.com/] [|www.pecususa.com] [|www.polyxo.com/visualsupport/pecs.html]
 * Helpful Websites:**

LaQuinta Montgomery Week 5: Tots-n-Tech Resources Exploration

I researched the resources that will be beneficial to a student with autism.


 * 3-5 Tools I find useful in teaching young children with autism. **
 * //My Day Board //** - a collection of pictures and symbols that are meaningful to the child and represent things that a child does or places the child goes on a daily basis. If the child sees the same speech therapist daily / weekly, it is beneficial to provide an actual picture of the therapist. If the child prefers to eat certain foods, provide a picture of his / her favorite food items. In order of the child’s daily schedule, velcro the item to a foam board. The person working with the child should point to each item and explain what the day is going to entail on a daily basis. Also, it is helpful to refer to the day board throughout the day as a reminder of what has already happened and what is to come.


 * //Communication for social opportunities //**- begins when different actions that children like to do are recorded (i.e., jump like a frog, sing a song “If you’re happy and you know it,” etc.). The child with autism (or any other disability) can act as the group leader with his / her peers standing around him / her in a semicircle. The group leader will start with one child on one side of the circle and tell that child what to do using the recording. Whenever a child forgets what to do, the peers will say, “Ask the leader.”


 * //Help kids identify emotions //**– is a game to help children with autism and other disabilities identify emotions and match them in the correct categories. The game can be created with a fruit and vegetable tray as the wheel. An emotion card (from Boardmaker) is placed in each section. In the center of the wheel is a pile of different emotion pictures compiled from magazines, actual student photos, more Boardmaker symbols, etc. The child picks up a picture from the pile and matches the picture with the correct emotion in one of the sections.


 * //What people involved in the child’s life could do to further enhance the use of tools //**
 * The child’s family and friends can utilize the tools at home and in the community to help the child communicate wants and needs.
 * Peers can help the child with autism and/or other disabilities with communication for social opportunities by using their own voice recordings to give the child with disabilities prompts to use.
 * The people in the child’s life can create more pictures that interest the child to help the child identify more emotions (i.e., maybe start off with happy, sad, angry and later add shy, afraid, confused, etc.).