In the past couple of weeks, I have had the opportunity to consult with a couple of IEP teams involved in supporting students who are using PECS. Both of these students had learned to spontaneously make requests for things that they wanted. It was great to see these students initiating, communicating their choices by bringing the PECS card from across the room and presenting it to their communication partners. The staff working with these students had done an excellent job teaching these students to be spontaneous initiators of communication. The question in both of these situations was, "What's Next?". Although efforts to move to the next stage (using PECS to make comments) had been made, it was not working well for these students, at least not yet. So, rather than changing the function of their communication (requesting to commenting), we decided to extend the complexity of their requests, to request a needed item vs a preferred one.
Staff set up situations where these students were engaged in familiar activities and routines that involved specific materials. They were taught to request scissors, paper, markers, trays, and other materials that they needed to complete these familiar activities and routines. Staff utilized the same procedures they used to teach these students to request preferred items (i.e., wait for the student to demonstrate their desire for the item and then prompt the student to present the PECS card to make their request). This was the perfect next step for these students.
