[ by Jason M. Wallin ]

Creating Picture Exchange Symbols

Guidelines for Creating Symbols

• I like to pair the printed word(s) with a picture as much as possible. I think exposure to text should be pervasive throughout any program, and I would argue that it is especially important in the communication system of a non-verbal child. If indeed the child doesn't eventually develop speech, printed words will likely be a more convenient and natural means of communication down the road than pictures alone. Also, we want to encourage reading in every child, and pairing words in a system that likely will become very motivating for a child might help hasten acquisition of those printed words.

• The efficacy of various types of symbols may have to be tested with your child. Some kids can better interpret photographs, because they look more like the actual activity or object that the picture represents. Others may find all the colors and visual elements of a photograph too distracting or difficult to decode, and may find a simple black-line drawing easier to use. I like to move from photographic representations to more symbolic representations when possible, as I feel it aids generalization (a symbol of a car can represent a wide variety of cars, but a picture of my car might only represent a white Honda Accord with a tinted rear window), and also, symbols are often easier, and cheaper, to work with than photos.

• A uniform system for using Velcro fasteners on your symbols, boards, and books needs to be established. This will ensure that all of your PECS symbols can be used with any of the boards or books within the child's environment. In all of my systems, I mount the hook (scratchy) side to the firm surface (the board, book page, etc.) and the loop (soft) side to the symbol itself. I use the same system any time I use Velcro, on workboxes, schedules, games, etc.

Materials for Creating Symbols

The symbols for a picture exchange program can be created from a wide variety of sources.

Mayer-Johnson

Mayer-Johnson produces probably the most widely known symbols for picture exchange and visual supports. Their Boardmaker software allows for easy searches of the database of several thousand images and gives you the ability to print out the images in a variety of sizes and orientations and with custom text. Check out the rest of Mayer-Johnson's software for some handy utilities to increase the efficacy of your augmentative communication program.

Hand-drawn art

If you fancy yourself an artist, or are able to crank out a few passable drawings, simple black and white sketches of some preferred activities can work very well.

Photographs

Photos can be very handy as PECS pictures. I use photos from my digital camera a lot for those items or activities that aren't represented in the BoardMaker libraries, or where I would like a more detailed symbol than what is offered there. Traditional film cameras work fine when you can afford to wait for the processing; Polaroids or digital cameras are handy when you need quick results. It is important when using photographs that you pay close attention to the content of those photographs. Often, kids might not look at the picture as we would expect. They may focus on an item of interest to them in the background as opposed to the more prominent item in the foreground. Consequently, it is typically a good idea to try to isolate the item or activity being photographed, as much as possible. Taking your photographs against a plain background, or outside where there may be fewer distracting background objects might be a good idea.

The Internet

Often, on-line stores or other Web sites have pictures of products or other items which can become great PECS symbols. Keep in mind, though, that the pictures on Web sites are typically under copyright and should not be used without permission of the copyright holder. A quick email request to the owner of the site is usually well-received.

Creating Selection Books

Selection books for PECS symbols can take on a variety of looks and purposes. Typically, selection books are based around activities. So your child may have a book which organizes all the symbols that he may need in the car, another for a trip to grandma's house, another in his play room, or others for the grocery store, or a friend's house, or a Boy Scout meeting, or any variety of events. To reduce storage demands, it may help to limit the number of books a bit. There may be a few books helf permanently in different areas of the house, one for moving from place to place (for in the car, or on the bus), one or two for school, and then a small collection of empty binders that could be put together in advance for those trips to the beach, or to the carnival, etc.

For kids that are in the later stages of picture exchange and are building sentences, you may wish to color-code your symbols and corresponding pages in the books. For example, sentence subjects (certain people or objects) could be matted on red and displayed on a red page, verbs on green, objects on blue, adjectives on yellow, etc. Such a system can help the child more rapidly locate the symbols for which he's looking.

Creating Selection Boards

Selection boards are used to display PECS symbols throughout the child's environment. In the initial stages of PECS training, the child will only be selecting from a display of a single picture, but as he progresses through the system he will begin choosing from larger and larger arrays. The pictured examples are selection boards to aid a child in selecting items to pack for his lunch. The large array displays all of the choices he has available to him today. The child would remove those items that he'd like for lunch, place them onto the smaller strip, which is marked with a symbol of a lunchbox, and hand the completed strip to his mom or dad who would help him pack his lunch. (click on the pictures for a larger image)

Creation of these boards was fairly simple. For the display board, I printed out a 4x4 grid in Boardmaker (with no symbols), glued it onto a piece of construction paper for added stability, and laminated. The Boardmaker squares helped me better line up the Velcro tabs. If you're not as anal as I, you can skip this step and simply attach the Velcro to a laminated sheet of construction paper. Attach the loop (soft) side of the Velcro pairs onto the front of the board, and attach strips of magnets onto the back (so you can pop it onto the refrigerator). The lunch strip is simply a piece of construction paper, onto which I glued a Mayer-Johnson "lunch box" symbol, and laminated. Attach a strip of hook (scratchy) Velcro, and you're ready to go. If you want to limit the number of items the child can choose to put into his lunch, you could use individual squares of Velcro instead of the long strip, one for each item he could select.