PECS is a nonverbal communication method that can be utilized for individuals with autism that don’t verbally communicate or have limited verbal communication skills. I believe PECS can help reduce some of the stress and frustration that many children with autism experience. Some behavior issues that autistic children have are caused by the stress and frustration of not being able to get across their wants and needs.
PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System. It consists of pictures of items that a person might want. It’s best to start with something that is highly motivating, for example, we started with cookie for my son. Basically Adrian’s teachers brought over a binder with velcro strips on it and we wrapped an actual cookie in tape so he couldn’t eat it. Then we would put the actual cookie on the velcroed binder and he would take the cookie and with just a little hand over hand to show him he would give me the wrapped cookie and I would give him a little piece of cookie to eat. To get any more cookie he would have to request it again by handing me or his teacher the wrapped up cookie. Adrian caught on to this very quickly and we added bubbles to his binder (just a picture of a bottle of bubbles and bubble wand) and he can request that with ease now as well. When we give him the desired/requested object we get down to his level and say what we’re giving him. (cookie or bubbles) Last week we added an undesirable object (a picture of a sock) this way we know if he’s just randomly giving us the pictures or actually looking at them and deciding what he wants.
I was a little nervous about doing pecs or sign language at all because I was concerned he would only want to communicate in that way and never want to communicate verbally. I have come to realize that this is just a visual tool to help autistic children really know the meanings of words, making that connection between a word and the actual object.

Tags: Autism Facts
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