Picture Exchange Communication: Phase 2

As I mentioned previously, our therapist is a strong believer in Picture Exchange Communication aka PECS.  There a multiple phases involved when implementing PECs.  The first phase I discussed in a post here. In Phase 1, you are still working with one picture.  You still give them picture and help them exchange the picture for the item.  This is with you sitting right there in front of them.  During this phase, I had Ellie in her high chair to keep her corralled.

Yesterday, my super genius little Bear decided to implement Phase 2 on her own.

The other day I made a PECS board using poster board, Velcro, and different PECs of toys.   I then taped the board onto a shelf in the kitchen.  Anyway, Ellie fully understands that giving me the iPad PEC results in her getting to use the iPad.  She has not, however, generalized it to other toys (i.e. giving me the crayon PEC yields her getting to play with crayons).  However, Ellie has discovered that she can remove the picture from the board, bring it to me in any room of the house and she will then get to play with the iPad.  This is called Phase 2.

In Phase 2, you teach the child that she can grab the picture on her own and bring it to you in another part of the house.  It is a very slow painstaking process because you literally start off by moving only a few inches away from the child and then progressively mover farther and farther away until you are out of the room.  This is a hard concept, hence why it is a painstaking process that requires so much patience (which I never seem to have enough of!).

Hopefully soon, Ellie will start to generalize and we can expand our repertoire of pictures.