PECS

[Guest guest]

HI Lynn

I cannot believe how many times schools will tell you to " ask Alta!!! "

Wrong!!!!! If it is used at school the school buys it - if the parents do not

have the resources at home to coincide with the school - the school duplicates

the material and sends it home!!!! Also, when I recommended the PEC system for

- the school district agreed and held a 1-day workshop for the teachers,

therapists and myself (and anyone else that was interested in learning PECS)

was the first child in the school district to use PECS - therefore,

everyone involved with him had to attend the workshop. The workshop was fun and

very informative and the school district purchased the PEC manual for me and

wrote me a check for $100.00 to purchase velcro and some corkboard (I use a

thick corkboard) and they also provided me with the entire Mayer- pics. I

do not use the Mayer-

(my preference) because I like the photos better - but is able to

understand the photos and drawings of the object. He is also putting sentences

together - " I Want " , " I Need " _____________. He has about 250+ icons in his

vocabulary and about 25-30 do not have the pic with the name anymore. We removed

the pic once he was able to read & understand the word. is 12-1/2 and we

have been using the PEC system for years - there is always icons to make - I

also use them for his storybooks, and visual thinking,etc. . . Does your Alta

worker attend IEP's with you???? If she was present. . . she and the school

district could settle the question (who funds what?????)at the meeting and that

way you do not have to be in the middle of that discussion. As long as you

receive the items - let them bicker between themselves!!LOLOLOL

Kathy

Re: PECS

Thanks Joan! Our school uses picture icons from boardmaker. I have asked

for assistance, to no avail. They say to ask the regional center to fund it!

Up until sixth grade, 's teachers never did anything. No matter what

was in his IEP, they would not do it. For the past two years, we have had a

wonderful teacher who is learning herself to use these things -- but it does

not cross over to the parents. And it is not how you described it. It never

has developed out to questions, etc. This is a major problem with rural

communities. And they have never had a child like .

~Lynn

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/8/02 7:36:51 PM Pacific Daylight Time,

outerspace@... writes:

<< If it is used at school the school buys it - if the parents do not have

the resources at home to coincide with the school - the school duplicates the

material and sends it home!!!! Also, when I recommended the PEC system for

- the school district agreed and held a 1-day workshop for the

teachers, therapists and myself (and anyone else that was interested in

learning PECS) was the first child in the school district to use PECS

- therefore, everyone involved with him had to attend the workshop. The

workshop was fun and very informative and the school district purchased the

PEC manual for me and wrote me a check for $100.00 to purchase velcro and

some corkboard (I use a thick corkboard) and they also provided me with the

entire Mayer- pics. >>

Whoa Kathy! That would NEVER happen in my district. LOL Despite my

complaining for 3 years at every meeting that it's no good if they teach Seth

something and don't teach us too. What good is it if he can master any form

of communication if he can't communicate at home? I'm running into the same

thing this year with signing. I have to follow what color art work comes

home in his bag and look up on the computer how to sign that color. I don't

know all the other signs they are working on unless I'm observing that day,

so there is no reinforcement from home to school or school to home. You're

so lucky to live in such a caring, intelligent district.

Gail :-)

[Guest guest]

Gee! you mean schools teach you? I thought it was the other way around!!!

I've been teaching the schools signs and pecs for awhile now. It's a shame

to cause it's like the blind leading the blind. I experiment with making

different pics (I don't have a program for pecs, I do it in paintshop) As

for signs, I have been teaching the school the signs Trisha uses and finally

the teacher on her own (she got tired of waiting for the school) took basic

sign class over the summer. I would be very intersted in learning how you

setup a picture schedule for home. We got one made for school but there is

so much at home that I don't know where to start and how much to put on the

schedule. Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated. Also, for

behavior I started a reward album for Trisha to take to school, when she does

something positive I print out a small pic of a disney character on it and

write what she did on it, then I send it to school and she then gives it to

the teacher to show what she did and they paste it into her reward book. It

seems to be working a little, the teacher then praises her good work and she

gets the fun of pasting (which helps with eye hand coordination).

Carol

Trishasmom

She isn't typical, She's Trisha!

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/8/2002 7:58:48 PM Central Daylight Time,

writes:

<<

Hello everyone. I sent out a post on the third, and no one responded.

Maybe

I am not doing this right. How do you get the PECS at home? Did the school

give it to you? They have been using it for for two years, but they

were just learning to use it themselves. He use to have an AlphaTalker, but

no one in the district wanted to bother with learning how to use it. He has

very few communication skills. He can just this year put some signs with

words. He needs to do both at the same time. I have a deaf child, so we

have always signed here at home.

is thirteen and cannot write. He uses a sort of picture

vocabulary with words to read a few simple made-up stories; this began last

year. He takes care of his own needs, with many reminders. He gets into

routines, that cannot be broken. The center of his world is

flying/fluttering things. He will take a piece of material or even a

Kleenex

and move or blow it. He discovered fans this year. Now he gets them and

holds a cape or material over the breeze.

His other love is videos, or rather pieces of videos. He will run it

over and over until he becomes the part. You would not believe the amazing

things he can do. At the end of Beauty and the Beast, when the

transformation scene occurs, can do a mirror image. I prefer this to

some of the things that he has been fascinated with in the past. Besides

fire, he loves the in and out cutting with knives. In a few minutes, he cut

our trampoline in over fifty places. There was nothing mean about it, just

the feeling and watching of it going in and out. Unfortunately, he also did

it to our sofa. He has grown out of these two things for the most part --

or

maybe we are more careful!

Have a great day! ~ Lynn, head zookeeper of the GeddieZoo >>

Lynn,

I think many families have found that they need to get themselves educated in

PECS and invest themselves in working on it at home. Personally, I think our

schools aren't set up to offer children many choices (compliance and

following routine is emphasis) so home is a more ideal environment for

teaching. MHO

Karyn

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/8/02 1:35:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lgeddie@...

writes:

> How do you get the PECS at home?

You can make your own pictures. Have the school duplicate the ones your child

has. Start a notebook. Get training from school personal. Write it in your

IEP. They have inservices all the time for teachers. You can use boardmaker

at the school or if they have a technical place where you go. Or you can buy

it. More expensive and you may not need that many pictures yet. Our schools

give a discount if we purchase through them. I've made pictures by using

pictures from food labeling and cutting it, gluing it to heavier stock paper

and taping it with packing tape instead of laminating. Get creative. It can

be done. I've even snipped off or drawn things that my daughter likes and

cut,glued and taped, veclroed. They work fine. What ever works.

Diane

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/9/02 5:34:32 AM Pacific Daylight Time,

Csvillars@... writes:

<< I started a reward album for Trisha to take to school, when she does

something positive I print out a small pic of a disney character on it and

write what she did on it, then I send it to school and she then gives it to

the teacher to show what she did and they paste it into her reward book. It

seems to be working a little, the teacher then praises her good work and she

gets the fun of pasting (which helps with eye hand coordination).

Carol >>

Carol,

This is great! It's cool that Trisha can share home and school like that.

How about an update on your sister? She doing better?

Gail :-)

[Guest guest]

Hi Gail,

My sister is doing better, we still don't know if she will have to have

more of her leg removed or not. Last time she went to the doctor he said it

was showing signs of improving but not enough signs, he said he will give her

a little more time before he makes the final decision. So we are praying it

will show more improvement by her next visit. She is still not able to use

her right prosthis at this time as her leg is still shrinking and they have

to keep resizing it. She has some very down days and some normal days. She

has gone back to work with adaptations but she says it's hard on her. If

she gets a cold she becomes terrified which is very understandable ( you

remember it was a sore throat that caused all of her problems to begin with).

The good news is that the damage to her lungs is healing, the damage to her

skin where the infection destroyed it is begining to scar over and the skin

graft has finally stopped shedding and is taking hold now completely.

Considering she had knocked at death's door, she has made tremendous strides.

She has a long way to go and I believe her fears will take even longer to

overcome but it sure is good to have my sister with us!

Carol

Trishasmom

She isn't typical, She's Trisha!

[Guest guest]

At 09:23 AM 10/9/2002 EDT, you wrote:

Personally, I think our

schools aren't set up to offer children many choices (compliance and

following routine is emphasis) so home is a more ideal environment for

teaching. MHO

>

I share your opinion, Karyn!! I try and try to get them to focus on Andy's

expressive communication, but all we really see is schedule schedule

schedule....

j

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/11/02 3:38:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

mlcritter@... writes:

> It seems she will follow a schedule with PECS but personel info is

> a " no go " . If any veterns out there have suggestions please let us in

> on that info.

>

I am confused about what you all know of PECS. It is a very strict way of

teaching the Picture Exchange Communication System. I know I could not have

done it without training from someone directly trained by PECS people.

Reading the PECS book was not enought to get it. When I observed the PECS

training it took two adults and one child for stage one (no body language

clues). I am by no means an expert but there are many teachers doing it

wrong. When I hired a PECS trained home therapist she taught me many things.

It took many months for Rochelle to understand the system but it was only

being taught once a week at school. But, her Speech teacher knew what she was

doing. It may go faster the more you use it. After Stage one is mastered it

is not so important to have PECS trained teachers. After your child

understands he/she will get what she wants if they choose the right picture

then you start teaching the pictures and discrimination. Motivation was the

key for us. What will motivate your child. I'll tell you it was ice cream or

mustard for us to get stage two. This took forever. Now we bring one new

picture with old pictures she knows and work from there. But she learned

stage one with bits of graham crackers for every right answer. We have yet to

learn traveling. This is when your child goes and gets the picture and hands

it to you. Wouldn't that be great!

I hope this makes sense to you all. I am still learning so forgive me if I am

being to general about what I understand the system to be. There are other

picture sytems but they are not PECS. I am really just trying to help, I hope

I didn't confuse you all more. We haven't even touched on schedules yet. I do

want the school to start visual schedules. I have no idea how to do it or how

it will go.

Diane

[Guest guest]

Hi Lynn,

I can understand your frustration with using PECS. I am just starting

also and it seems that there has to be a way to find routines and

skills already done. I used several pictures for Jenna before and

after surgery she picked the face with tears every time because she

gets stuck on anything with crying, and repeats it again and again.

At school she has been a terror the last two days but when pictures

were used to try and see what was the matter, she picked " happy " and

we still do not know why, or how to have her communicate with PECS.

It seems she will follow a schedule with PECS but personel info is

a " no go " . If any veterns out there have suggestions please let us in

on that info.

Take care

Lynn Grabko

> In a message dated 10/8/2002 7:58:48 PM Central Daylight Time,

> @y... writes:

>

> <<

> Hello everyone. I sent out a post on the third, and no one

responded.

> Maybe

> I am not doing this right. How do you get the PECS at home? Did

the school

> give it to you? They have been using it for for two years,

but they

> were just learning to use it themselves. He use to have an

AlphaTalker, but

> no one in the district wanted to bother with learning how to use

it. He has

> very few communication skills. He can just this year put some

signs with

> words. He needs to do both at the same time. I have a deaf

child, so we

> have always signed here at home.

> is thirteen and cannot write. He uses a sort of

picture

> vocabulary with words to read a few simple made-up stories; this

began last

> year. He takes care of his own needs, with many reminders. He

gets into

> routines, that cannot be broken. The center of his world is

> flying/fluttering things. He will take a piece of material or

even a

> Kleenex

> and move or blow it. He discovered fans this year. Now he gets

them and

> holds a cape or material over the breeze.

> His other love is videos, or rather pieces of videos. He

will run it

> over and over until he becomes the part. You would not believe

the amazing

> things he can do. At the end of Beauty and the Beast, when the

> transformation scene occurs, can do a mirror image. I

prefer this to

> some of the things that he has been fascinated with in the past.

Besides

> fire, he loves the in and out cutting with knives. In a few

minutes, he cut

> our trampoline in over fifty places. There was nothing mean about

it, just

> the feeling and watching of it going in and out. Unfortunately,

he also did

> it to our sofa. He has grown out of these two things for the most

part --

> or

> maybe we are more careful!

> Have a great day! ~ Lynn, head zookeeper of the

GeddieZoo >>

> Lynn,

> I think many families have found that they need to get themselves

educated in

> PECS and invest themselves in working on it at home. Personally, I

think our

> schools aren't set up to offer children many choices (compliance

and

> following routine is emphasis) so home is a more ideal environment

for

> teaching. MHO

>

> Karyn

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/12/2002 8:51:43 AM Central Daylight Time,

writes:

<< Hi Lynn,

I can understand your frustration with using PECS. I am just starting

also and it seems that there has to be a way to find routines and

skills already done. I used several pictures for Jenna before and

after surgery she picked the face with tears every time because she

gets stuck on anything with crying, and repeats it again and again.

At school she has been a terror the last two days but when pictures

were used to try and see what was the matter, she picked " happy " and

we still do not know why, or how to have her communicate with PECS.

It seems she will follow a schedule with PECS but personel info is

a " no go " . If any veterns out there have suggestions please let us in

on that info.

Take care

Lynn Grabko

>>

Lynn,

We don't use pecs here. is quite verbal and used sign until his speech

got going. But, I wanted to pipe in here and say that wouldn't have

been able to communicate his emotion until we used discrete trial to teach

them. can now identify situations that make people proud, angry, sad,

happy, surprised. He still has a hard time identifying how he is feeling.

This is a very difficult skill for many of our kids.

just thought I'd share our experience.

Karyn

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 10/11/02 3:38:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

mlcritter@... writes:

> At school she has been a terror the last two days but when pictures

> were used to try and see what was the matter, she picked " happy " and

> we still do not know why, or how to have her communicate with PECS.

> It seems she will follow a schedule with PECS but personel info is

> a " no go " . If any veterns out there have suggestions please let us in

> on that info.

> Take care

> Lynn Grabko

>

>

>

>

Lynn,

Emotions are the MAIN roadblock to our kids being able to function in the

rest of the world. Knowing and understanding what they mean coming from

others and being able to emote that which you are feeling is the most

difficult in kids with autism. If you are working hard to introduce PECS,

emotion is not necessarily one I would start with. I'd start with the

things that motivate your child the most. That may be food, activities,

toys, familiar people or play friends (For Maddie, that's Barney)? Hey,

we're still struggling here, so I'm merely offering up suggestions.

BTW, something just hit me with what you wrote. You said your daughter

kept picking the happy face when they were trying to find out what was wrong.

I don't know how well your daughter comprehends, but is it possible....JUST

possible she picks that because she recognizes that's how she WANTS to

feel???? You know, everyone is so eager it seems, to assume our kids are

confused and don't know what is going on around them. Maybe they should

take the happy face pic and say... " OH, OK....YOU Want to be HAPPY....WHAT

makes you HAPPY? " and go from there. Just a thought that crossed my

CLOGGED brain today!!!! LOL Am tired and need SLEEP!!!!

Donna

[Guest guest]

Hi to everyone,

Haven't been responding much lately, but I have been reading all the

emails. Brook is making really nice progress with PECS which we are really

happy about. I am making photos and laminating them, to try and keep up with

him. Still, he can't get all of his needs and desires across with PECS yet.

So he has been pretty frustrated lately, ever since spring break actually. He

is not happy with the videos he has picked, not happy about the audio tapes

and basically bored to death and frustrated I guess. Whining endlessly is not

something I deal well with. He is starting to get into water again and that

is not somewhere we want to go as many of you know. We are going to talk to

his Doc and see about rasing his Risperdal before we all go nuts around here.

I took Brook on a drive today, he gets mad when he realizes I am heading

home, yet he doesn't want to get out of the car anywhere, just drive and

drive!!

Miles is going to volunteer to help with Special Olympics, it sure

would be nice if Brook could participate, but unless they have playing in a

swimming pool, witch I hope they do, we will see.

Marisa,

Miles 16, Brook 13, Genevieve 5

[Guest guest]

Hi Cyndi,

About the siblings using PECS too, definitely. My other two kids are

now using it with my son Brook, well my daughter is only 5 and she isn't

quite yet, but she is catching on. What a sweet big brother, has.

We are making good progress with PECS this time around. Last time we tried

the teachers were not doing it correctly. Brook's current speech therapist

has had advanced training in PECS and is very good. She is very pleased so

far with how Brook is doing and so are we.

Last time they were teaching it to him in a much less motivating way

and I can see now why it failed. They were not following the steps in order.

The speech therapist came out to our home a few weeks ago and taught my DH

and I how to do it. She is also training the staff at school how to use PECS

with Brook. She is also giving us weekly updates and telling us how to

proceed to the next step. She is giving me hand outs as well. I am making

and laminating the photos myself so that they will last a little while. Later

we will move on to the Mayer symbols probably. Good Luck! Let me

know how it goes.

Marisa,

Miles 16, Brook 13, Genevieve 5

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/5/2003 1:05:40 AM Eastern Standard Time, poggim1@...

writes:

> We are going to talk to

> his Doc and see about rasing his Risperdal before we all go nuts around

> here.

> I took Brook on a drive today, he gets mad when he realizes I am heading

> home, yet he doesn't want to get out of the car anywhere, just drive and

> drive!!

>

Thanks for the update on Brook Marisa. There's just some things that are

so hard for our kids to understand, no matter how many pictures or social

stories we share with them (um, dental and doc visits certainly come to MY

mind....LOL) Showing Maddie a picture of a party for instance, isn't go to

help her adjust to going....she HATES them. Instead we do *inching in* type

stuff. Like on Sunday there was a family communion party with a kabilion

kids. Well, Maddie chose to go to the neighbor next door's house (they

weren't home...LOL), so Duff just hung out with her a while so she could

watch from a distance. Then we brought her over in her stroller (she feels

safe there) and eventually she ended up in the enclosed jumping thingy they

rented (she was the ONLY kid there who had no time frame...she could stay

forever...LOL). Still, when it became apparent she was stressed out (easy

to spot...she bolted from the thing....I was surprised she'd even figured out

where the exit to that thing was...don't know if *I* could have....;-) and it

was time for me to take her home. BUT I got to stay long enough to fill

my plate and eat.....a first in a while of family parties.

{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}

Let us know how you make out with upping the meds.

Donna

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone,

I am making my own PECS for Brook using my digital camera and I have

been using the high gloss paper. Then I laminate the photos. It works at first

but after a while the laminate doesn't stick to the glossy photo paper. Does

matte paper work better, or do I just need a really good laminator? I have a

small heat one, which seems to work fine for our needs for now. Thanks.

Marisa

[Guest guest]

PECS = Picture Exchange Communication System

www.pecs.com

My son uses little pictures to help communicate his needs. He has a notebook

with

laminated pictures of things he needs, likes, uses. They have velcro on the back

and are

attached to a page in the notebook. He take a picture off and gives it to you

(or whomever

he wants to " talk " to). It has lessened his frustrations. We still have him use

his

words/language when he hands us the picture.

The other day was a fantastic example....he was playing with his older, 5 year

old brother.

They were playing with hotwheels and apparently, Larsyn wanted a car that his

older

brother, Chance had. Well, Chance wasn't paying attention to him and wouldn't

give the

car up. So instead of Larsyn crying and throwing a fit, he ran into the other

room, where

the PECS notebook was and grabbed the " toy cars " picture. He ran back to his

brother and

handed it to him! It actually made me cry. I was so proud of him.

He still is in Speech Therapy 4 x's week, but his expressive language is the

same as a 6

month old, with scattered skills up to 12 months. It has been a very long and

slow road,

but he tries SO hard!

-Jenna Weil

>

>