I had talked to Harbor's speech therapist about starting to use PECS for Harbor (this is back when she was completely non verbal) and I started looking into them more since I had no idea how it really worked. What I DID know, is that I wanted to try everything and anything to help her communicate with us and be able to tell us what she wanted. A lot of Harbor's frustration and meltdowns were due to her not being able to communicate with us and tell us what she wanted/needed.
PECS
Picture Exchange Communication System
PECS allows people with little or no communication abilities to communicate using pictures. By using PECS it helps the individual initiate communication, use eye contact, request something and practice saying the word of the picture.
My biggest concern with starting to use PECS was if it would actually make Harbor NOT use her words and make her rely on PECS instead of using her words and trying to talk. Her speech therapist explained that it's actually the complete opposite! Using PECS would help Harbor with her development of spoken language. It's easier to just say the word (once she can) than to go find the picture and hand it to someone. Which makes sense!
I was told how some children might take a while to learn and understand how PECS work and some may only be able to make sense of PECS that are actual pictures of their actual items (ex: a picture of their own bed, a picture of their own backpack) but Harbor seemed to be able to understand pictures that weren't HER own things (ex: a picture of drawn blue shoes) and she understood they were shoes. So we skipped taking photos of everything (it's very time consuming!) and I searched online for a place to order PECS from.
I found a store on Etsy called Smile4Autism and felt like it was exactly what I was looking for! Here's a link to the shop: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/Smile4Autism?ref=search_shop_redirect
I wanted to dive right in and get started so I ordered the binder that had organized tabs and 156 PECS.
I also ordered the Daily Schedule
Along with the binder of PECS came with a removable velcro strip that is great for allowing Harbor to form sentences on and make requests while handing me the strip...
At around the same time of receiving the PECS in the mail was when Harbor also started making HUGE progress with her speech! I really do believe using the PECS though helped her even more! Harbor has learned to say new words as well as how to say, "I want ___ ". Which is HUGE!
I would say the Daily Schedule has made a big difference in our daily routine as well! Harbor (and Cove) really enjoy seeing what is on the "chart", completing the task and then removing the picture and placing it into the "All Done" bin. Harbor gets excited to go see what's next on the chart and seems to really help our morning and night routine go more smoothly. Now this Daily Schedule chart isn't just for children with autism. It can be used for ALL children and is a great visual guide! All children like to know what is going to happen next and not be caught off guard by the unknown. So I really do highly recommend a Daily Schedule for all toddlers!!
Our very first "trip" away was really hard on Harbor and when we returned home she went regressed. Her separation anxiety was through the roof, her behavior and meltdowns got worse and she showed a lot of sign of just overall stress. So with our trip to Mexico coming up in 6 weeks I was REALLY nervous about how Harbor would respond. I wanted to make sure we did more in prepping her for us to be leaving for a week and grandma and grandpa coming to stay with her and her brother.
Harbor's Behavior Interventionist (BI) created a Social Story with using real life pictures to create a story about Harbor's mom and dad leaving on vacation, grandma and grandpa coming to stay at Harbor's house and then mom and dad returning home! We started to read this Social Story to her every night before bed a little over a week before we were going to be leaving on our trip. I couldn't tell if she actually understood the story, but we kept reading it to her and she liked it!
We also had her BI create a calendar with pictures on it to show Harbor the day that grandma and grandpa arrived, the day mom and dad left on an airplane, the days she went to school, the days she had soccer practice and the day that mom and dad came home! It was a great visual schedule so she could SEE what was actually happening everyday. While we were on our trip grandma and Harbor would look at the calendar every morning and night and cross off the days that passed. I didn't get a picture of the calendar unfortunately to share, but it was a very simple, large calendar of the month of May and had the pictures printed on each day.We will continue to use PECS with Harbor and hopefully we will one day get to the point that we don't need to, but until then we have been finding a lot of success with them! If any mamas have any questions please feel free to reach out to me. I hope this helps! xo Ashley
