#pecs communication

[shepandem]

Transcript: I do good stay calm not get frustrated when try different thing in swimming.

I get mad at myself easily when I don't get something right the first time. Last week I had a meltdown because I messed up learning a turn and got water up my nose. This week I tried a new take-off from the wall and kept messing it up, but stayed calm and didn't get upset about it. I can make mistakes and learn hard things!

[pixierainbows]

Pixies Specialized Programs camp PECS ! so much good ! can play with others in park , play games with everybody else !

want PECS for home too . and at art studio . and . for everything .

( Pixie carried their PECS page around the whole time every day )

[shepandem]

Ta da! My secret communication project is finished! I spent hours upon hours making 530 1"×1" PECS cards for my new PECS book from scratch!

I had to design, print, cut, laminate, re-cut, and add Velcro to every card, one at a time. I need to get new scissors because my current ones got so blunt!

I originally got the small size PECS book, but it became immediately obvious that I need the large one. So I got it in red. It should be here in about a week.

I got the book from the Pyramid Education Consultants website (not sponsored!) I had originally bought a regular binder to construct my own book, because the official books are extortionately expensive, but after I got started tackling the 500+ cards, I didn't have the energy to then build the book as well!

My plan is to use the PECS book at times when my talker is too heavy and unwieldy, like when I go for walks, or on all day outings to the museum or zoo.

I'm very pleased with how the cards came out!

[shepandem]

PECS transcript: "I do bad thing hurt me because overwhelmed."

I had another meltdown tonight and banged banged banged my wrists into the wood floor. I was upset because Miss R didn't want to talk about something I really needed to talk about. When I was calm, she hugged me and said she wasn't mad. I still feel shame every time I have a meltdown though.

[shepandem]

I put as many of my cards as would fit into my PECS book! There are a few additional pictures that will be a second post due to the 10 image limit on tumblr.

I can fit 18 cards per side, each tab is full at 36 cards. Most of my word categories have 60 cards. My calculations tell me that I'll be able to fit a total of 48 cards on each side of the large book tabs. I hope I don't have to get a second set of tabs, because they may not fit!

I matched the colours of the card borders to their colours in my talker. Verbs are blue, adjectives are red, feelings and small words are green, etc. I was pleased with how quickly I was able to find the cards I wanted to construct my sentences by using the colours I'm familiar with.

It can be a brain stretch to figure out how to say what you want when you only have a limited number of words available!

[shepandem]

Here are the rest of my PECS book pictures! I only took pictures of a few of the people cards because a lot of them have people's names on them. They're only first names, but I don't know if just first names on the internet is safe, so I left them out just in case.

[shepandem]

I love your PECS book so much. just wondering how did you make it? thinking of making 1 each for me and my little sister

I bought the book and tabs from pecsusa.com, but you can get a regular 3 ring binder and page dividers for way less.

For the cards, I used TD Snap to design them. I made boards of the words, then took screenshots and printed them, cut the cards out, laminated the cards, and cut them out again (because if you don't have a small area of lamination around the paper, it won't stick.)

If you don't have an app that you can create your cards with, you can use a word processor like OpenOffice or Microsoft word to make table grids, and make your cards that way.

After they were laminated, I put the soft side of Velcro dots on the back of each card, and lay the rough side of adhesive-backed Velcro in strips on the book and each of the tab pages.

To get the right spacing, I put a strip of Velcro down on the edge of a page, stuck a card to it, got another strip of Velcro, put a card on that, and lined the second strip up so that the edges of both cards were just touching.