A question of precedence--vocal or PECS?

[Guest guest]

I am asking this for a shy new parent who put a question to me---

Her very young son is in a public program that is heavily into PECS (Hardly

anyone does sign in our state---and PECS is standard practice in public

intervention). There is no BA in charge of the public program and the staff's

training is not through Pyramid Associates.

She was concerned that he has, from how she described them, some pretty

reasonable approximations for mands but at a low frequency. When he does vocally

mand during PECS training, he is not reinforced socially or otherwise until he

completes a prompted exchange of the icon.

She is very worried, and it will be quite a while until she is able to get a

real behavioral consultant. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I believe

that the vocal behavior should be reinforced in preference to the card exchange,

but I don't claim to be an expert in either ABA or PECS, and that is just my

uninformed opinion.

Is this something to be concerned about?

TIA,

Regina F

Regina F.

I believe in Applied Behavior Analysis.

[Guest guest]

If she allows them to ignore any verbalization or approximations,

they will do just what public school did to my son -- TOTALLY

EXTINGUISH verbal language at a very early age (3 - 4).

At 14, thanks to pulling him from public school, a good BCABA, a

great team of therapists and lots of patience, and a good ABA/VB

program for almost two years, my son is starting to have lots of

pre-verbal skills and some verbals. Sign is hard for him, but we

do it and he is catching on. Undoing bad programming remains our

biggest obstacle. Old habits die hard, and the longer they are

present, the longer it takes to undo.

If the school uses PECS (and in public schools, I use the term

loosely), they should STILL REINFORCE efforts to speak!!!!! If

you don't have the PECS manual, borrow a copy or get it to learn

what schools usually do wrong in teaching card exchange. No

wonder the kids don't do well.

Most paras and teachers in public DO NOT recognize that the

ultimate goal SHOULD be to develop verbal language -- to whatever

extent that might be for a particular child. I suppose they get

so caught up in teaching an 'alternative' communication method,

they don't grasp that a child is speaking or attempting to speak.

PECS and Sign can be a catalyst, if used appropriately and

reinforced, but verbal language should be reinforced.

This mom needs to point this out to the school, and get the IEP

tightened up -- ask for para and teacher training. Make it known

to the 'team' that the ultimate goal would be speaking, and make

sure they get training on reinforcement.

PECS done incorrectly is just as ineffective and detrimental as

Sign done poorly.

Perhaps these folks need some instruction on what the real goal

is (verbal language) and how to use reinforcement effectively.

Have the trophy, just a mom, and I don't claim expertise, either

.... experience speaks.

GEM

----- Original Message -----

From: " Regina Frey " <rgcf541@...>

> She was concerned that he has, from how she described them,

some pretty reasonable approximations for mands but at a low

frequency. When he does vocally mand during PECS training, he is

not reinforced socially or otherwise until he completes a

prompted exchange of the icon.