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August 2007
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News and Special Events
10 Years of PECS in the UK — A Birthday Celebration with a brand new talk
Join us at our 10-Year Celebration with PECS co-founders, Andy Bondy and Lori Frost, and be among the first in the UK to hear the new inspiring talk: the Language of Emotions. Guest presenters will also speak on their experiences using PECS.

22 Sept, London Workshop: London Voluntary Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London, N7 6PA
24 Sept, Edinburgh Workshop: Novotel Edinburgh Centre, 80 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, EH3 9DE

Special price: only £60 plus VAT (£70.50 total). More information and to register online

PECS Photo Competition Get that camera ready for your chance to win a free day of consultancy! To celebrate Pyramid UK’s 10th Anniversary we are hosting a photography contest. We are looking for images that capture the best in PECS practice and can include PECS-users of all ages and in the setting of your choice. Full details and terms & conditions

Resources News — the New 2008 Pics for PECS CD and Help with Discrimination
The Pics for PECS CD is now updated for 2008. This library of PECS pictures includes all previously available images plus nearly 200 new ones, such as mushy peas, recycle, volume down, volume up, and many more.

Our new instructional DVD, Discrimination Training Alternatives Module, is geared towards people who have attended the Basic PECS Training and find that their students are having difficulty discriminating between their PECS pictures (i.e. stuck at phase III). This DVD demonstrates useful strategies to help your students progress through this stage, opening the door to communicating beyond a one picture exchange.

More info on PECS resources

Reminder: PECS Training Workshop Leaflet
A reminder that for 2008 Pyramid will publish two editions of our Workshop leaflet per year, giving you the dates for the workshops further in advance. Hopefully this will make it easier to plan ahead for your attendance at relevant training.
Spring 2008 workshop leaflet

PECS Intensive Programme 2008 - Now available for all 2008 school holidays
The 2007 PECS Intensive Programme was such a success that we are running it again this year in all the school holidays. A reminder to register your interest early for these programmes, held in our clinic in Brighton, as dates are filling up fast. More information.

PECS 2 Day Workshop in The Netherlands
We at Pyramid were thrilled to conduct a PECS 2 Day Workshop followed by a day of consultation in January 2007.  This workshop was held in Noordwik and was a huge success!  The group was incredibly dynamic and full of questions and the following day of consultation was so well organised and productive.  Several of the students moved on to using attributes and making comments as well as getting others off and running with Let’s Make a Deal.  The staff were delighted to see the progress made and were great at implementing suggestions. 

PECS—Another Success Story...
In August 2004 amazing twin boys, aged 6, arrived at our primary school to be part of our Enhanced Learning Facility which is attached to a local primary school. The boys had a knowledge of food items as represented by ‘Boardmaker ‘symbols and these were well used at home and at snack times but we were struggling to extend the boys’ knowledge of new symbols and to use them to initiate , especially when they wanted something which none of us could provide! We also felt there must be some way of
accessing curricular areas in a more meaningful and interactive way.

In November 2005 we contacted PECS and in January 2006 Neil Stevens arrived. What a change to all our lives! With lots of pre- planning both by school and home we were able to identify the boys’
preferred items for Neil and within a short time of him working with the boys they were requesting
independently.

Over the next 9months the boys moved from single word symbol requests to using the sentence strips. They learned and can use the attributes of colour, size and shape. They have a usable symbol
vocabulary which encompasses food, wild animals, zoo animals, transport, furniture items, clothes and some body parts. By Neil’s next visit in Nov 2006 we were using this knowledge to enhance the boys inclusion and interaction with their mainstream peers who love to be their communication partners within small group settings which include art work, construction, environmental studies, jigsaws and games.

Our next new areas of development are number and commenting using “I see…..” and “I hear….”
We have all noticed an amazing improvement in all areas of the boys’ lives.
We in our Authority have benefited from the 2-Day Workshops presented by Neil and his colleague and we hope to extend and
standardise our PECS across the whole authority.

Sheila Dickson
Principal Teacher
Callander School ELS Base. (Scotland)


2nd World Autism Congress: South Africa 2006
Lori Frost and I attended this International Autism Congress in Cape Town in Oct/Nov 2006 and presented a paper celebrating 20 years of PECS, including an update of research findings and discussion of some current myths and misconceptions about PECS.  It was great to share experiences with so many others involved in the field of autism.  There were over 800 delegates from countries too numerous to list, including Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Namibia, Cameroon , Egypt, Indonesia, Phillipines, Iran, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, India, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc.  South African delegates were the majority group and we received 20 requests from parents and professionals to provide further PECS training and support in different towns and rural settings in SA.

Keynote speakers included 2 adults with autism:

Wendy Lawson described herself as having autistic spectrum diff-ability, experiencing the world differently from her neurotypical (NT) counterparts.  She said people with ASD learn through a single channel or ‘monotropism’ whereas NTs are able to attend to lots of different channels simultaneously (‘polytropism’), sometimes all 5 senses at once, without being overwhelmed.  For many with ASD, eye contact can be difficult as it requires looking and listening at the same time, which can be over stimulating.  She urged understanding that for some children, all their attention is taken up just being in the room with you.  Nothing spare is left over to deal with what you are saying or expecting.

Ros Blackburn gave her usual eloquent and humorous talk, without disguising the fear and limitations that are part of her daily experience.  She conveys her wonderful capacity for fun and zest for life and her refusal to accept ‘second best’ for herself or others; how her parents helped her gain a “veneer of social competence” that enables her to engage in a still largely autism-unfriendly world.  She emphasized the need for high expectations for people with ASD linked to equally high levels of support.

Other keynote speakers included Gary LaVigna (positive approaches with severe behaviours), Paul Shattock (genes & environment in causes of ASD), Rita Jordan (theories, treatments – what’s new), Carl Reichelt (why diet is relevant), Cathy Lord (diagnosis as young as 2 years).

In addition there were 2 days of short paper presentations, some good, some bad, some indifferent!  Highlights for me were (1) hearing about the wonderful progress made by students at the Vera School in Cape Town following their whole-school introduction of PECS; (2) an inspiring talk by Kevin Baskerville, Warwickshire’s Autism Inclusion Coordinator, on Developing Friendship Skills.  

Looking forward to the next International Autism Congress in Mexico in 2010!!

Sue Baker
Director of Pyramid Educational Consultants UK

Older Students & Adult Forum Success!!
Our first Supporting Older Students and Adults Forum in London on October 10 2006 was a huge success!  We were delighted with the turnout and thrilled with the overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from the delegates.
The day began with an inspirational and extremely informative talk given by Scott Helsinger, a Pyramid Consultant from America who shared the experience he had in assisting three men with disabilities move from an institution into a home in the community.  This story gave a personal twist to the theoretical and practical information Scott shared with all of us regarding programming for the 16+ population. 

In addition to Scott, we were privileged to have practitioners in the field volunteer to give talks sharing their experiences with this age group.  Michelle Payne from Liaise in Somerset spoke about introducing PECS to a young man with autism called Matthew.  Audrey Lindley, Louise Smith, and Marie Rowntree, explained how using PECS and the Pyramid Approach has changed the lives of two 16+ students and has transformed the way Thomas Bewick School in Newcastle teaches its students.  Lastly, Jeanette Sibson and Katie Thackery discussed using PECS at Fosse Autism Services in Leicester, focusing on several older students who have used PECS.  Each of these speakers did a fantastic job painting realistic portraits of the challenges and successes they’ve encountered.

A highlight of the day was the talk given by Teresa Webb, a Pyramid Consultant in the UK who described her use of PECS with a young woman called Lisa who received a serious head injury several years ago and was significantly helped through the use of PECS.  This talk was particularly relevant as it demonstrated that PECS can improve the lives of people regardless of their age or the cause of their communication difficulty.
  

Intensive PECS Programme in Helsinki
Several PECS training workshops have already been held in Finland and this year, in June, our first intensive PECS programme was run. This took place over 5 days during which the children were given the chance to practice and develop their communication skills in a highly focused setting. Each day was split into two sessions - 3 children attended for three hours in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. Although the aim was for the children to build their skills it was also important to develop the teaching and communication skills of staff members and parents so that they could continue to work effectively with the students after the programme had ended. Each session followed the same format and included free play together with structured PECS work (such as commenting and work on colour, shape and size etc). In addition there were music, snack, art, cookery and outdoor play - all designed to promote communication. A sensory room was also popular! All of the children and staff worked so hard and on average each child made between 50 and 60 exchanges in 3 hours! One even made 103 ! This was fantastic! This week was a great success and already there has been lots of positive feedback from both the parents and the staff who helped. There have been reports that the students have been using a wider range of symbols, making more exchanges at home, being more spontaneous in their communication - even with new people, and even making more attempts at speaking.


Pyramid Approach to Education
On 12 May 2006 Pyramid held an innovative one day seminar with Dr Andy Bondy, two Headteachers and a parent on the Pyramid Approach to Education. The aim of this seminar was to illustrate the importance of being able to organise and deliver effective interventions in the field of autism and severe communication/learning difficulties; much enjoyable discussion of this model took place with the audience who were mainly Senior Managers, Psychologists, SALT's, Teachers and Inspectors. Penny Roberts, a mother of a teenager with ASD, showed very poignantly the benefits of using the Pyramid model, and emphasised that when strategies "go downhill the behaviours go up". Two headteachers, Cliff Warwick and John Somers gave fascinating and entertaining insights into the way in which their two schools had used and integrated the Pyramid Approach in their schools and curriculum. They both illustrated how this model had enabled the students to acquire skills rapidly and assisted their respective schools to move forward in a very positive and dynamic way. John summed up the success of embracing the Pyramid model in the style of George Best "I spent a lot of money on PECS and staff training and the rest I just squandered!" Andy, Cliff, John and Penny all spoke from the heart and from first hand experience, which gave the approach real credibility. Since 12 May there have been many enquiries from delegates as to how they too can develop such a model, and Pyramid consultants are now involved in working with other schools to develop the same common framework to improve pupil progress. In view of the success of this seminar we will be holding another one in 2007!

Sharing News After 2nd International PECS Congress
The 2nd International PECS Congress was held in London on 11-12th November 2005.

Speakers and delegates came from all corners of the world, including Japan, Australia, Iran, Kuwait, Iceland, Finland, Germany, France, Greece, US and Canada. The sense of PECS developing worldwide was awesome, particularly through poignant videos such as the first PECS student in Africa or students in Kuwait with multiple disabilities, in wheelchairs, carrying their PECS communication books and using the system "as if it was their voice" across the day.

Main speakers covered topics such as: PECS and Head Injury/ Does PECS Work?/ Can PECS Help with Challenging Students/ Ethical issues related to PECS/ Initiating PECS in Africa/ Setting up an Effective Classroom. Three research papers looked at: The impact of PECS on communicative initiations/ The effects of three communication strategies on spontaneous requesting/ The largest independent evaluation of PECS worldwide.

In addition to main speakers, day two allowed the opportunity to hear short paper presentations, in smaller break out rooms, from people working in the field who felt brave enough to share their work, their concerns, excitements and achievements. Topics covered are too wide and varied to be listed, but included: PECS and the National Curriculum/ PECS and ABA/ PECS with adults, challenging students and students not on the autistic spectrum.

As 2005 marks the 20th birthday of PECS, some fun was had as Andy and Lori shared a suitably large birthday cake with delegates at the fundraising party organised by the Pyramid Educational Trust (a registered charity set up to support people with autism and communication difficulties to learn to communicate through PECS and the Pyramid Approach. More from: www.pyramideducationaltrust.org

So, we are pleased all the hard work is over, happy that it was successful two days and grateful for all the support and the wonderful feedback we received.

"All presenters were fabulous. The stories are so heart warming. Great conference!"
"A big thank you for an exciting and inspiring two days"

We hope to post many of the main speaker and short paper presentations on the website very soon, so go to www.pecs.org.uk if you would like to follow up topics from Congress.

Motivation is the key!
Many students with special needs can appear to lack interest in anything, and in order for communication to develop there must be a need to communicate, so it is for this reason that reinforcers are so important.

Many students can have strong sensory needs. The key to finding highly motivating reinforcers for such students is to observe their behaviours when left to their own devices. For example, you may observe your student gazing at lights or looking out of the window or fixating on rotating objects. They may be looking intently at their hands or moving their fingers in front of their face. For these students, visual stimulation and reinforcers that create similar effects would be a good place to start. If you notice your student vocalising, humming or singing to themselves, sound stimulation could be explored. Students who touch themselves or others, pinch, bite or put objects in their mouths could benefit from tactile stimulation such as vibrating toys or massage.
Other preferences may be to rock, bounce or spin themselves, walk on tip toes or bang their heads. The sensation of movement or the sense of their own body position may be extremely reinforcing. Replacement items for these behaviours could include things which recreate the same sensations such as bouncing on a therapy ball or sitting in a spinning office chair.
Finally, there are those students who enjoy smelling everything! In this case, offer items which have strong scents such as aromatherapy oils or strong smelling food items.

For students with variable or inconsistent reactions to sensory input, an assessment with an Occupational Therapist may be advisable. Be imaginative and creative! When searching for reinforcers remember that we need to start from where the student is, not from where we would like them to be. Good luck!
Pyramid UK Consultant

PECS Consultancy in the home
Although many people come to the 2 day training workshops to learn about The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), lots of schools, organisations and particularly families feel that they need that extra bit of support to implement and develop the programme. All of the Pyramid consultants work with families in the home or in the Brighton base, and this can be on a regular or intermittent basis.

One family with a 3 year old boy diagnosed with autism has been involved in long term consultancy with us for just over a year. PECS was introduced to C. in June 2004, and since then visits have been made initially every 2 weeks and now every 3-4 weeks to support and expand his communication skills.
C. quickly became a spontaneous communicator and learned to travel up and down the 3-storey house with his communication book on his shoulder. He also uses a daily timetable for all the key events and routines and 2 timetables are used, one in the kitchen and one on the first floor to make organisation easier. After 4 months he was able to make 'lists' eg I want toast butter marmite, and now requests whether he wants a drink in a bottle or in a cup actually using the word 'in'.

C. loves to comment on photographs using PECS and now spontaneously points to events such as the dustbin lorry! Vocalisations are increasing and soon we will be working on a speech imitation programme as well as continuing to expand his use of PECS. We will follow C.'s progress and bring more news to you in the future!
Teresa Webb, Consultant at Pyramid

Picture Perfect - A Parent's Story by Traci Yates-Poff

Click here to download: 'A Parents Story'

There was a time when I couldn't take my five-year old son out. David is autistic. His inability to communicate his wants and needs to us made our lives a never-ending guessing game. We used trial and error to try and determine what it was David wanted to tell us as he had no method of functional communications. If we made repeated errors, we could pretty much count on a series of tantrums before the outing ended. It seemed safer to keep David at home, where at least he was content.

All of that has changed now. I am delighted that I can now take my son to a restaurant and watch him participate actively in ordering his meal, or requesting the need to go to the bathroom.

Last night, in celebration of my son's first true sentences, I took David Out to dinner--just myself and my little boy, alone, together. This is something I would have never dared attempt even a month ago. But I believed he was up to the challenge. His behavior had been perfect for weeks now.

David has always adored french fries, and Johnny Rockets in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina serves them just the way he likes them.

The woman at the table next to ours couldn't have missed the fact that something was different about my five-year old son. She had spent the good part of her meal gawking as my son worked to communicate with me through pictures velcroed to a three ring binder. "I want orange juice" my son said, by constructing pictures on a sentence strip and handing them to me. As soon as I acknowledged his request, he then put down a French fry icon and paired it with the words, "I want".

"Oh, you want French fries, too!"

David nodded his head--something it took me three months to teach him. His smile was beatific. Joy bubbled from the recesses of my heart which had been shadowed with darkness for far too long.

The woman at the next table rolled her eyes and snorted. Her obvious opinion that children like mine should remain hidden from the world melted her attractive face into a mask of bitter derision. Suddenly, she looked ugly to me. I chose to ignore her. "Perhaps she thinks what David has is catching," I thought to myself.

I really didn't give a flying flip what she thought. This was a moment of triumph for my child. After years of struggling to teach David to understand, process, and retain verbal communications, the Picture Exchange Communications System (PECS) revolutionized his life. David handed his menu request to our waitress, and she immediately wrote down his order. "He's so cute," she said.

"Why yes, he is, and such a good boy," I bragged.

This journey through teaching David to talk with pictures has been peppered with a thousand little miracles, the biggest one being my acceptance that my little boy simply did not possess the ability to process language. But the discovery that he could process written words paired with pictures led me to explore implementing the "Picture Exchange Communications Program" with David.

Finally, I found something David could be successful at. He caught on to the idea of engaging another human being's attention with pictures immediately. Over the months he's gone from simple one-word requests to forming real sentences. He communicated more and more fluently in a language anyone could understand.

My son proved time and again he could be taught to navigate this world. My student became my teacher. My curriculum was my daily discovery or the precious personality that blossomed from my son.

Recently, David began tentatively commenting on his environment: I see, I hear, I feel. It was a step that not all picture communicators can grasp. It was a step which expanded David's world a hundred times over.

Finally, David had a way to tell me his wants and needs. He began to Initiate little picture conversations: "I want the car." "David, do you want the red car?" "I want blue car." "This one?" "I want big blue car."

Day by day, as my son mastered the program further, I began to discover glimpses of the bright and engaging little boy who for the past five years had lived largely trapped inside himself.

Nothing soothed the scars on my heart so much as the pride that beamed from my son's face as he participated actively in the world around him. For the first time, I allowed myself to imagine David living his adult life outside of an institution.

"I see balloon," David told me with his pictures. I followed my son's brilliant blue gaze towards the gawking woman's table. Ah, they were here for a birthday party. Her son, who was about David's age gawked, too. But I knew that his curiousity was the natural interest of a child who was experiencing something new.The balloons belonged to him--he and his family were apparently celebrating his sixth birthday.

"Yes, you see balloon," I told my son. It hurt me more than a little when I placed a red "x" over the balloon picture to tell David that this balloon was not his. David adores balloons, he always has. But he accepted that this one was not meant for him. Again, pride filled me.

Our meal was delivered and David ate his French fries with gusto. He sat as quietly and calmly as any child his age possibly could. But I couldn't help but notice that every now and then his curious stare moved to the bouquet of bright balloons dancing over the table of gawkers.

Honestly, I was impressed with David's self restraint--he never once made an overt motion towards the next table. He was content to simply enjoy the bobbing balloon ballet playing out before him. I don't think I've ever been tickled with my boy. His joy was contagious. I couldn't stop smiling.

As David indicated he'd finished his meal, we paid our check and rose to leave. As we passed the table of gawkers, David stooped to the floor. He created "I see balloons" on his sentence strip and showed it to the birthday boy at the next table.

The little boy didn't know what to say, so he simply gave David a "thumb's up" sign, then reached up to pluck a balloon from the bouquet. His mother snatched the balloon from her son's hand.

"Those are my son's balloons," she said, slapping the sentence strip out of David's hand.

Her snarling face met with mine. "Why don't you keep that child at home Until he can learn how to act?"

I guess I could have lit into her. Maybe I should have. But her son's Gesture had touched me. I picked up David's sentence strip and placed it back on his book. As I stood to leave, I met with a room full of silent diners, all of them staring. I feared if I didn't end this horrible situation quickly, David may quit communicating forever.

I looked at the woman's son and said "Happy Birthday." I prayed she didn't garnish satisfaction from the film of tears rising to my eyes.

I tried to get David to the door as quickly as possible. It was a difficult journey, as tears were already pouring from my eyes. My mascara ran and my vision blurred. I didn't think I'd ever navigate my son to the front door, but finally we burst out into the last slanting rays of the evening sun.

I sat down on the sidewalk to collect myself. David sat on my lap and began to flip through his notebook, searching for picture words. Finally, he found the pictures he wanted and handed his sentence strip to me. "I want hug Mommy."

"Oh, yes, baby, Mommy does want a hug."

"They" tell us our autistic children do not possess the tools to understand emotions. "They" tell us our children cannot tolerate affection. I'd have given anything if THEY had been watching as my son's slender arms wound themselves around my neck. I'd have given anything to see "their" reaction as my little boy kissed my cheek, hugged me hard then took me by the hand to indicate it was time to go home.

Somewhere in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, there is a little boy who turned six-years old yesterday.

I wonder if his mother realizes how fortunate she is to have such a bright, communicative child. I wonder if she remembers to thank God with every passing year for her son's continued good health. I wonder if she ever thinks to utter her gratitude as the word "mother" rolls from her child's lips for the thousandth time that day.

I wonder, and I hope, but I also doubt. After a certain age, narrow minds tend to petrify. Opinions become cast in immutable stone.

In spite of the blatant prejudices of that little boy's mother, I saw a flicker kindness in her son's eyes as he considered giving my son one of his many precious birthday balloons.

I can only hope that child's exposure to my son yesterday provided the seed from which true tolerance may someday take root and bloom. It is children such as these who will make my son's time here on Earth something of value.

In the last week or so, David has begun verbalizing some of the words on his sentence strip - something I'd have never thought possible as "they" told us he'd never speak.

~~

About the author: T.L. Yates has been published in national magazines and newspapers, and is a columnist for www.oscweb.com (writing as Liane Gentry-Skye), and the Autism Resource Konnection. She is the mother of two adorable autistic boys and two beautiful girls. She spends her time mothering,writing, and advocating for special needs children of all kinds. Her personal missions statements are: changing the world, one word at a time and don't get mad, get published.

Copyright 2000, all rights retained by author. Reprints available only upon express written permission of author.