Picture Exchange Communication System and Autism Ranking:

Aims and Claims

Aims

The aim of the Picture Exchange System is to teach individuals to initiate communication and express their needs more effectively.  For example, according to Ganz et al (2012),

“The stated purpose of PECS is to increase functional communication in individuals whose current communication methods do not adequately meet their needs. However, PECS has also been investigated as a means to affect other, collateral – or ‘‘non-target’’ – outcomes. The most common collateral outcomes examined include speech production and problem or challenging behaviors. “

Claims 

There have been various claims made for the use of PECS as an intervention for autistic people. For example, according to Bondy and Frost (1994), 

“For the 66 children who used PECS for more than 1 year, 39 (59%) acquired speech as their sole communication system. Of the total group (i.e., children using PECS for more than 1 month), 25 (29%) currently use a combination of speech and pictures or use a complex printed word system, while 41 (48%) use solely speech. Twenty of the children in the mixed outcome group have spent less than 2 years within DAP. Overall, 76% of all the children placed on PECS have come to use speech either as their sole communication system or augmented by a picture-based system. Even within 1 year of starting on PECS, 2 of the 19 most recently identified students already used speech as their sole communication modality. The large majority of the children who continue to rely on PECS as their sole means of communication function in the profoundly handicapped range of intellectual abilities.”

Updated

17 Jun 2022

Last Review

01 Sep 2017

Next Review

01 Dec 2023