By Julia Hoffman, MS, CCC-SLP

Some people will maintain PECS as their lifelong communication system, but others acquire such vast vocabularies and language complexity that it makes sense to investigate transitioning them to speech-generating devices (SGDs).

Certain basic communication skills should be in place before we expect our learners to start communicating with an SGD. Attempting to teach these skills while simultaneously trying to teach device navigation is too challenging for some learners and can lead to device abandonment and potentially lost communication skills.

Let’s assess each PECS user to make sure they have the following skills before introducing an SGD:

1. Does the learner know how to communicate?

– Can they exchange a picture with someone completely independently? (No help from anyone, no asking, “What do you want?”)

– Can they spot someone who has something they want and approach that person with NO help? (No asking “What do you want” or using gestures to get the learner to come to them.) Can they do this in a variety of settings/situations?

– Can they get their communication partner’s attention if the person isn’t turned toward them?

2. Does the PECS user know what to communicate?

– Can they discriminate from an array of at least 20 pictures per page?

– Can they navigate between at least 3 pages of pictures?

– Can they build a 2 – 3 picture sentence and exchange it with their communication partner?

– Have they started using attributes in their sentences to describe nouns or actions?

– Do they have a steadily increasing vocabulary?

If your PECS user has accomplished these skills, are YOU ready to teach them to use an SGD? Selecting the right SGD to meet their individual needs is a process, with specific questions that need to be answered. Once this has been done, you’ll need to plan detailed lessons to systematically transition the learner to the new communication system. We need to make sure no communication skills are lost in the process!

Please visit these links for additional helpful information:

1. “Is Your Learner Ready to Transition from PECS to SGD?”

2. “PECS to SGD: Guideline and Recommendations for a Successful Transition”

3. Pyramid also offers a popular one-day workshop “Transitioning from PECS to SGDs”