Picture Exchange Communication System

There are many different obstacles autism spectrum individuals have to overcome in their daily lives; social insecurities, eye contact, appropriate spatial awareness etc. But in most cases, their biggest hurdle is mostly their communication skills; it’s been shown that communication impairment is at the heart of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that children with ASD can show a wide range of communication skills as discussed by Agius and Vance (2015). According to Agius and Vance, there is up to a 30% positive diagnosis of children with ASD who will forever remain nonverbal (no consistent verbal communication). With such a high percentage of ASD children it is recommended that their communication and learning needs are to be addressed by using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), it has been shown as an effective intervention that addresses individuals with ASD and their learning and communication needs (Ogletree, Morrow-Odom, & Westling, 2015). PECS has helped children and young adults with ASD communicate with those around them; their teachers, peers, parents etc.

People with Autism can have difficulties with trying to make friends. They tend to appear cold and aloof, and they prefer to be alone. [2] The service user will have difficulties talking to others and the service user might need other ways of communicating for example, they might need PECS to help them. The Picture Exchange Communication System helps people who struggle with their speech and need help identifying everyday things. PECS also helps the service user spell and distinguish different letters and their sounds.

Bondy, A., & Frost, L. (2002). A Picture's Worth: PECS and Other Visual Communication Strategies in Autism. Topics in Autism. Woodbine House, 6510 Bells Mill Rd., Bethesda, MD 20817.

Social communication is "the development of spontaneous, functional communication, emotional expression, and secure and trusting relationships with children and adults", emotional regulation is "the development of the ability to maintain a well-regulated emotional state to cope with everyday stress, and to be most available for learning and interacting", and transactional support is "the development and implementation of supports to help partners respond to the child's needs and interests, modify and adapt the environment, and provide tools to enhance learning" (The SCERTS Model, 2007). The usage of the SCERTS model in schools is continuously rising and proving to be beneficial. The SCERTS model is geared towards developing communication for those with ASD; this model is very useful for those with ASD because the model focuses on working with a child with ASD and pushing the child to work on main symptoms of ASD that are unfixable. Children with ASD typically have social and learning setbacks and behavioral issues, the SCERTS model focuses on ways for teachers to work with ASD and help students learn while coping with their communication skills and emotions.

Which is why the Individualized Education Program was created in the late 1970’s. IEP’s provide children with ASD proper personalized learning strategies they need in order to achieve academically. With this program enacted, psychologists, behavioral analysts and doctors began researching the topic of autism and studying how children with ASD learn. They slowly began coming up with effective methods of how to teach children with ASD and how to help these children learn at their highest potential. These methods included DDT, PECS and PRT which have been applied, analyzed and refined over the years to create evidence based techniques that result in the most effective ways

Augmentative-Alternative Communication (AAC) is the description for communication strategies or physical tools that ASD individuals use to enhance their capability of understanding others and enhancing the ability of ASD individuals to make their needs, wants and intentions known (DynaVox 2009). AAC aids people who have some type of problem with writing or speaking so their uses are not only restricted to ASD children and adults. The no-technology version of AAC does not require a physical aid because AAC is when pointing or making gestures is used to show what is needed or wanted. The low technology version is the use of communication books and electronic communication boards. High technology AAC

Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a brain disorder that mutates the ability to produce healthy and energetic brain cells. This is sometimes referred to as mitochondrial disfunction in autism and causes an autistic child to excel in cognitive tactics but to struggle with the simple skills of communication. This fact is easily proven because in most cases, and autistic child is also an extremely genius human being. Autistic children don 't like to be touched, loud noises, or changes in their daily routine. (Autism-Topic) They also have trouble making eye contact, forming relationships, answering to their

Children with autism also known as autism spectrum disorder or ASD, have social, communication and language problems. It can vary from very severe to very moderate. Many children with autism tend to have restricted and repetitive patters of behavior, interest and activities. Although autism is a developmental disability, not all children with autism have the exact effects. Children with autism can have some of the following social and communication skills and behaviors such as: Social skills, communication skills, and common behaviors, leading to difficulties in areas like imaginative play. When a child has problems with their social skills it may be hard for them to connect or interact with other people. Most, if not all autistic suffer from communication skills such as understanding, talking with others, reading or writing, following directions, knowing how to behave, concentrating on tasks, and more importantly understanding and using of words. For children with autism, communication development happens differently and more

Melody didn’t have the words on her board to express her funny jokes, deep emotions, or any of her thoughts really. She was constricted to a few words and phrases. This all changed for her when her friendly neighbor, Mrs. V, took notice that Melody needed language. The intervention method Mrs. V took was to make words smaller to fit more words on Melody’s board and place names, questions, and a great variety of nouns, verbs, and adjectives on her board. Melody was finally able to form sentences that expressed how she felt. Melody also learned new words to place on her word board by using different colored flashcards. The pink cards were for nouns, blue for verbs, and green for adjectives. Most of the time, people believe that children with cerebral palsy have a cognitive impairment but for some students CP only affects their physical functioning. Flashcards are very helpful to learn new words that can be added to a word board. It’s important to continue to expand the vocabulary children with CP are exposed to and expanding their word board to more than just basic words. This intervention method is very useful in a home and school to communicate more than needs. Parents/teachers can even switch to a complete different word board in a different environment for example having a word board specific for school and one specific

A well-known ASD adult, Temple Grandin suggests caregivers of ASD children that if the environments are organized to the “think in pictures” nature of ASD children, learning will be a lot easier for such children. She explains this nature to the Language-based thinkers as she translates every word that she hears or reads into the pictures and even movies. (Grandin, 1996) According to literature reviews conducted by Dettmer (2000) and Meadan(2011), the researches up to date the papers were published, agreed on the success of using visual supports to aid ASD children to social interactions, sequence and organize their life, transitions between activities, maintain attention, auditory processing, and behavioral challenges (Dettmer et al.,

His repertoire has increased by 2-3 word phrases, and he has started to show interest in others. He is now capable of recognizing familiar faces and maintaining eye contact during social interactions. By following the structure of Leo’s program and with the guidance of the Behavior Analyst, I have helped Leo accomplish his targeted goals. Therefore, similar to the Behavior Analyst on Leo’s case, I aim to provide children with ASD with the necessary skills to prosper and grow as individuals. I want to help these children close the gap of limitations by understanding the importance of using functional communication, engaging in appropriate behavior, and comprehending social norms. Hence, my experience working with the Behavior Analyst has helped solidify my passion for pursuing this profession.

Ganz and Simpson (2004) were attempting to discredit this argument. They did this by trying to determine if the language abilities of three children with ASD would increase after the inclusion of a PECS program into their treatment plans. The researchers in this article found that two of the children who took part in this study made large gains in their ability to use the PECS system (they were both able to make it the phase 4). However, the third participant was unable to master any levels of the PECS protocol and, instead, had to use a modified PECS system. They also found that none of the three participants readily verbalized their wants at any point of the PECS phases, showing that the use of PECS is not always going to lead to an increase in expressive communication skills. This result adds strength to the argument that PECS interventions, don't increase the verbal communication abilities of children with ASD. However, the PECS program was still able to increase requesting capabilities. The researchers brought up other areas that require further research. These areas included; the need to understand comorbid diagnoses, other factors that might lead to an individual not being positively affected by a PECS program, and the modification of

While Ian has a hearing aid to help him be able to hear others. The classroom may benefit from a Telecommunication Device for the Deaf (TDD) as this devices is used for students who are deaf of has a hearing impairment. The devices has a QWERTY board and a small screen that will allow the student to type their word and/or sentence to communicate to others. Therefore, Ian who is non-verbal will be able to use this device to advance his ability of communicating rather than solely using the PECS system. As the student is learning to use the PECS device, the TDD device is hardly used in the classroom setting, but with the student is recommended as it provides a student tools to communicate. In each lesson, the teacher will instruct the student with to use the TDD device to communicate during the

As stated by Hume and Reynolds, work stations can provide the visual information that a student with ADS needs to help them increase on-task behaviors since students many with ADS have visual processing as a strength. A student with ADS may also respond more to visual cues since they are sometimes lacking in verbal aspects of life. The work systems should support the behavior needs of the student with ADS. The work systems can be modified to meet their needs rather than trying to change the student to meet the environment. “It is an antecedent-based preventive intervention, which means that the work systems use the visual-spatial strengths of children with autism to intrinsically motivate them to complete academic work tasks, and it natural contingencies.” (Hume and Reynolds, 2010). TEACCH is called “Structured Teaching”. “The term ‘structured’ in autism interventions generally describes organization of time, space, and sequences of events within the environment in order to make learning activities clearer and easier.” (Hume and Reynolds, 2010). There are four types of structure that are recommended in TEACCH program. The first is the physical arrangement such as furniture or use of visual cue to show a student with ADS where activities will occur. This helps in avoiding distractions and overstimulation. The second type of structure is organizing the sequence of the day or an event in a way that the student can understand

Another issue that this system can show is that the communication is limited to the pictures available for which parents and teachers around the person with autism must plan ahead for pictures needed. Finally, the longer a person with autism uses PECS, the greater the variety of picture/symbol cards that can provide. This may take extra effort of the parents or