Communication

By now, I think most of you know that Cameron does not speak.  And when I say does not speak, I mean he does not say words.  None.  However, that does not mean that he doesn't communicate to us in his own way.  He speaks, he just speaks much differently than your average 3 year old. 

A few weeks ago I found a list I had written early last year, tucked away in a notebook.  It was a list of the words Cameron had.  Yes, he did have words at one time.  The list was full of words like "Owen, cool, horse, dog, cat, elephant, tractor, hay, Elmo, Cookie (as in the Monster, not the food)..."  I could go on with them, but they are mostly like this.  Do you know notice a pattern with them at all?  With the exception of "cool," (which he only said when Owen or someone else said it to him, which is called "echoics") they are all nouns.  That's because Cameron mostly used his words to label things.  You could ask him, "Who/what is that?" and he would label it for you.  But he never said, "I want milk," or even "Milk?" as a means to get something.  I think this is a Red Flag that can often be missed by parents and doctors, because at the well-check, your doctor might say, "Is he talking?"  Well, yes, he was talking.  What the doctor needs to say is, "Is he using words to communicate with you or to you?"  They are two very different things. 

If he wanted something like milk or a snack, he would direct us to wherever that thing was, either by putting our hand on it, or trying to physically push us in the direction of whatever he wanted.  He still does this pretty often, but he is learning a new way of communicating with us in his various therapies.

This new way is called Picture Exchange Communication System, or PECS.  Though it is kind of involved and it has been said that if you are just using pictures you are not neccessarily using the actual PECS, the basics of it involve Cameron handing us a picture of whatever it is that he wants.  It is a very slow process, as he first has to understand what each picture is, and then understand that he physically has to hand it to someone in order to receive that item. 

There are generic PECS pictures, which look like this:

If you'd like to go more specific with it, you can take photos of different things and make PECS cards out of the photos, like this:

We started this system when we had AEA coming to the house a couple of times a month.  Though he did pick up the use of the "Snack" card and the "Milk" card, it pretty much stopped there because the therapy just wasn't as intensive as it needed to be in order for him to learn the system.

Currently, we just have a few that we use pretty regularly and they are stuck to the end of our kitchen island.

In his ABA therapy that we do at the house, he has what they call a PECS book, which looks like this:

They take one or two PECS cards out of the book and velcro them to the front of the book like this:

Then Cameron is supposed to choose the PECS card which has the photo of the object he wants, give it to the therapist, and then they will give him what he asked for.  He is progressing so well with this that the Supervisor thought the three girls that work with him might be recording the data incorrectly!  She just couldn't believe how quickly he's moving along!

In his Speech and Occupational Therapy at ChildServe, he uses PECS but they go one step further.  The PECS cards are attached to a GoTalk, like this:

This is a simple voice-output device.  The Speech Therapist puts 4 PECS cards on the GoTalk, and then records with her voice what each one is.  Usually, she will say, "I want..." and say whatever is on the card.  Cameron picked this up very quickly as well.  It didn't take him much time at all to figure out how to use it and the power that it gave him.  He is making choices with it all time in therapy sessions now!

We have been trying to figure out exactly how we are going to implement all of these at home.  Obviously, our goal is vocal speech, but until that happens, we need something in place so that our little guy doesn't get frustrated because he can't tell us what he wants.  We were going to purchase a GoTalk, but the one with 4 pictures is about $200.  You can get them with 4, 9, or 20 pictures on them.  Rather than have to keep spending money on these as he moves through each one, we started looking for different ideas.  We came up with the iPad!  There are lots of apps that you can download specifically for kids with autism, including all different kinds of communication apps.  We are going to be experimenting with one in his therapy first to see how he responds to it before we purchase one.  But his Speech Therapist thinks that the iPad is where communication for kids with autism is heading so we are hopeful that it will all work out for us!

So who wants to take bets that Cody and I could be playing with an iPad in the next couple of years because Cameron no longer needs it to communicate with us since he'll be talking? ;)