Research: PECS: Potential Benefits and Risks

This article concludes that the picture-exchange communication system (PECS) can help children with autism communicate effectively, and perhaps learn to speak. The authors begin this overview by pointing out that, when a child is learning to speak, the role of the listener is to reinforce the child. This reinforcement can be given both as a natural consequence of the child's speech (child says: "I want a cookie," reinforcement is: cookie), and also as a social consequence (child says: "I want a cookie" reinforcement is: "Oh! You want a cookie! Here it is."). For a child with autism who has trouble with speech, both kinds of reinforcement may be rare. The authors comment that PECS provides this reinforcement without requiring the child to speak. They then outline the phases of PECS training (described in the PECS fact sheet). Finally, there is a brief discussion of the potential risks and benefits of PECS. For example, while some parents have feared that PECS will result in delayed use of speech, one major benefit of PECS is that children using PECS often do develop speech. Another benefit of using PECS is that many people in the child's community can use the system without special training.