“In House.”

 

“In my house.”

“Eat(ing) in my house.”

“Girl in house.”

“Different (signed) house.”

“Go to home.”

 

Our daughter’s first phrases.

A powerful beginning.

She’s making Observations and seeing that it can be a Destination

 

She said it often and we all reinforced her communication with affirming responses.  With time we realized she relied on us to acknowledge her and if we didn’t she became very anxious.  It became a rule to her, she says something and we respond. If we didn’t the rule was being broken and that was not allowed!

 

So, we needed to slip in a new rule for her to understand, it went like this:

You can only say a statement to us 2 times with a engaging response from us both times and if you say it a third time we will need to ignore it.

 

We created a visual check list for her to have as a reminder on the new rule.

Initially she felt confused, then angry but fairly quickly she understood and adjusted her thinking.

 

I then helped her out further by designing separate phrase sheets for all her new conversational themes with different word options to help her build sentences and  to practice saying them.

Here are a couple.

It was helpful.

I used the PECS system on laminated sheets of paper, making the words on the PECS larger then the images to begin to promote word recognition. My hope is one day she will read.

She picked out her words with some help and constructed a sentence on the strip, then we asked her to read us the sentence. We cued her when she needed help finding the right words, the order of the words for the sentence and pronouncing the words.

This practice I think is helping her relax some knowing she is getting her message across and she had tangible visuals that make the process more concrete in her mind.

It’s also a nice simple way to practice sentence structures. I may add a period, “.” PEC so she can begin to understand where they are placed.

She needs visual clues to understand what is possible so, when we’re not understanding each other I usually need to step back and see how I can break down the steps to their simplest form. The format can be a sentence or a vertical sequential schedule.

When I know the steps I usually start by drawing VERY simple pictures ( 3/4″x 1/2″) and covering them with packaging tape and slap on a very small piece of velcro to the backs as prototypes. I do mean VERY simple line drawings work but, if you don’t feel comfortable trying this there are image programs or the PEC program is called Pagemaker, which can be expensive.

 

 

 

 

If the sequential system is working I’ll consider making formal PECs for them with Pagemaker or just leave it.  Once she understands what the image means she uses it.  I fight myself from wanting every system to look professional because if I did this I’d be spending hours on them!

So, where are the communication challenges with your child. Sometimes I don’t even know where they are till I find myself so frustrated that I know I need to figure something out.  This is when you stop, make a cup of tea, sit down with a piece of scratch paper, and jot down all the steps it would take to have this task be understandable then reduce them to the essential sequential steps, make them into small pictures, put them in the right order and present them to your child.

Once you see how it can help your mind will be flooded with ideas.  I can be overwhelmed with the possibilities.  If this happens to you don’t need to feel in a panic this is a process you and your child are learning together.

I’d love to hear how you support communication with your child.