And no I don't mean the rippling muscle variety, although come to think about it I am pretty passionate about those too - but that's an entirely different story. I mean the Picture Exchange Communication System which is what Toby has learnt to use so he can communicate his basic needs.
One of the first indications of there being something amiss with Toby's development was that he just failed to develop speech. He'd been early to do all the physical stuff - walking at 11 months etc but though he'd been babbling all those precursors to speech like bababa, mamama and dadada he seemed stuck there and his speech just never materialised. Toby was 2 years old by the time we got the diagnosis of Autism and he still had no form of communication whatsoever. He didn't point, wave or gesture in any way in fact he didn't have any way of communicating anything. I used to guess when he was hungry, thirsty or tired and when I got it wrong life was miserable for us all. Getting a diagnosis is a battle in itself and for many families it can take over a year to get to a point where a professional is prepared to put anything definite in writing. This is an agonising time for families as there is very little support available to children without a confirmed diagnosis. Even with a diagnosis we were facing a wait of 6 months to get an initial consultation with a speech therapist to assess Toby's needs. It was time for action.
Thankfully the internet is fabulous as a resource and I spent hours every evening reading all about language development, autism and various intervention methods. There is a lot out there to sift through. I looked into some of the more intensive interventions (ABA and Son-rise) but with Amy's needs to consider as well it didn't seem possible to commit the considerable time and expense that both of these entailed. PECs on the other hand was based on a simple theory that anyone with a bit of dedication and determination could put into practice. I ordered the manual, computer software and all the materials that we needed and we started as soon as they arrived. The first PECs card we ever made was for milky bar buttons and although it was slow to begin with, by Christmas Toby had 4 additional symbols that he could exchange without prompting. He's gone from strength to strength and is now able to construct very simple sentences to request food, drink, toys, dvd's and a few simple activities.
If anyone out there has a non-verbal child I would encourage them to look into PECs. It's widely used in the USA and Canada and is becoming more widespread over here. It's certainly transformed life for my little boy and I can't express how thrilling it is to see him walk purposefully to his book, browse his symbols, compose his sentence and bring it to me to ask me for a custard cream and drink. Without PECs life would be a whole lot harder and more frustrating for him.
For more info on PECS see here.
On a knitting note, my moo cards arrived - printed via my pics on flickr. I'm so pleased with them but am having difficulty parting with any at the moment!
