Feedback on PECS

[Guest guest]

My son is almost 4. He has been diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia on top of

autism. In terms of speech he finds it hard to talk but we have noticed vast

improvements in his oral motor abilities. He knows a lot of words receptively,

expressively he can say about 50 words consistently. In the last two years, we

worked very hard to teach him how to initiate by coming to the adult, tapping on

the shoulder, exchanging eye contact and requesting to come. He points to

objects he wants. I was told by ST that it would be useful for us to implement

PECS to assist in developing functional communication for him. I spend

two days training and I am still not convinced that this is best way to go

because I would have to give up on eye contact, verbal requests to come,

gestures - waving to come, calling me to come for a piece of card in my hand. I

was thinking of introducing it to my son as one of the targets rather than to

apply it in every hour of his life and

if it is functionally applicable, we would hopefully see him using it as a

preferred method but still we would expect him to verbalise. The trainer

indicated that this is not going to work. There does not seem to be adequate

research - studies with limited subjects - 2 - 3 subjects and no control groups

so it is hard to take the recommendation for PECS as a evidence based practice.

I am interested to hear from anyone who used PECS with their children -

successes and difficulties because I would like to provide my son with ability

to functionally communicate but I do not want to introduce system which would

forgo other aspects of communication - verbal, gestural, etc.

Kind Regards

Monika