Busyknitter

What is PECs? A communication system using picture symbols, devised by Pyramid Educational Consultants

Why did you go on a course to learn how to implement it? Because it is a very detailed, specific programme and I wanted to learn how to do it properly. PECs is not touted as a miracle cure or anything like that. It has a strong evidence base behind it, but so do lots of other approached. But you’ve got to choose something and the basis of the programme is essentially behaviour modification. And if you are going to do this with an ASD child, you have to take it in very small steps and address errors precisely along the way. So I needed to be taught.

How long was the course? 2 days

Was it fun? Yes, the presenters very very professional and humorous in the way they delivered the material. I also met lots of nice people.

How much did it cost? Well, the cost of the course itself for a parent is £140, which is half what they charge professionals. To implement PECs, you also need a certain amount of resources; folders with velcro and a good range of picture cards as a minimum. Pyramid market lots of this stuff and it ain’t particularly cheap. However, they were very careful to stress that there are lots of cheaper ways to make all the stuff that you need and that you don’t have to buy theirs. But I’m rubbish at making stuffand don’t have much time for messing about with things like that. So I spent about £50 on materials as well.

Did you learn much Oh my goodness, yes. I hardly know where to begin. We started to implement PECs a year ago, guided by T’s speech therapist. He learnt the concept of exchange quite easily, but somehow never got past first base. To be honest, at home we let the whole thing fizzle out. But now I think I know why we failed. We didn’t do sufficient preparation in terms of observing T and identifying the things he would be most likely to respond to (reinforcers). We were only taught how to implement stage 1, so no wonder that’s where he’s stuck. It’s almost as if Stages 2 and 3 ( which incidentally I think will be very hard work) were expected to happen all by themselves. We didn’t know how vital it is to avoid “prompt dependency”, which in English means we have to make T take the initiative. And we weren’t taught how to spot and correct errors in the PECs procedure. And most important, we jsut didn’t do enough. Somehow, i have to find a way to get T to initiate up to 50 exchanges a day. That’s a lot of hula-hoops!

Do you feel ready to have another go at PECs Raring to go !

Was there anything you didn’t like about the course Well, the food wasn’t great

Also, it was a bit disheartening to be one of only two parents in a group of over 50 students. it seems that in the UK, the schools and NHS services take the initiative and somehow parents take a back seat. This is not the case in the US. I was told by the course leader that the same course Stateside would consist of about two-thirds parents. And the average age of their children would probably be under 3.