visual schedules

[speechman]

Hi-I am new to the message board (excuse the typos!) and have a question for either professioanls and/or parents. I have a client that I see who has autism (he's in high school). He is nonverbal although can imitate some sounds and come close to imitating words. Any verbal response is in imitation. Past therapies in the school have focused on oral motor and more traditional speech therapy to get student to talk but not necessarily communicate. He can read but doesn't understand what he reads. Parents are opposed to using pictures/icons to teach him to communicate. They want verbal communication. Visual schedules are "okay" yet the school hasn't been implementing them on a consistent basis. SO... what is the experience out there for using pictures or icon systems to aid communication? An outside agency came in and did an eval for augmentative communication. They feel that right now he is not a candidate for AAC in terms of a device that provides voice output, but that communication boards with both pictures and print is the way to proceed. My training with kids with autism always focused on visuals and pictures (eg PECS). I am interested in other's success stories (or non-success stories) using visuals. I am also open to any suggestions and advice on how to get the parents to come on over, without being too disrespectful of the school.

[firstdonoharm2]

My daughter, who is 5 and has been diagnosed with autism, has a vocabulary of only about five words now. (When she was 1-year-old she had a vocab of 14 words.) We knew she had communiation skills but she had lost the ability to express herself verbally. Currently her pre-school, and at home, are using PECS, consistently. It was slow starting, but once she caught on she's adapting it in her own way. Many times now, when she does not have a picture to show us what she needs/wants, she will go find a source (video, book, object), point to the image she's trying to convey, and make eye contact to get acknowledgement that we recognize what she's trying to communicate. PECS has really helped ameliorate her frustrations with communicating. We're also finding that she's associating the printed words to the images and I feel that she may be able to read/write someday. I think she's happier because now she has some control over what she needs/wants. Hope relating our successful use of PECS may help convince your client's parents and school to give it a try.