This blog proudly shares some of the accomplishments of our learners in the 2022 and 2023 Summer Schools.  Last year, Pyramid Educational Consultants re-launched the UK PECS Summer School. Our company values were at the heart of our goal setting for learners, if you want to read more about this check out our blog from February 2023  

A learner who was told they weren’t ready for PECS but made it to Phase IV! 

Sandy and her family had been told that she was not yet ready for PECS as she did not have picture understanding and was only at the object of reference stage. Sandy proved everyone wrong! By the end of week one Sandy was exchanging a picture from the front of her book (Phase I) and travelling up to six steps to her communication partner with a picture (Phase II).  

A key focus was expanding Sandy’s interests so that we had more variety of opportunities to teach PECS in. Sandy already had favoured activities of colouring, reading, rolling balls, and singing, her key worker soon mastered the baby shark lyrics! In already preferred and newly expanded activities we were careful to have a balance of communication and fun, we didn’t want Sandy to learn that communication only happens in these specific contexts.  

After finding three new preferred activities the next skill taught was picture discrimination, where Sandy surprised us all! Sandy learnt pictures through the PECS teaching protocol; strategies like the half-second rule and using the 4-step error correction procedure. Within two days Sandy was finding pictures within her communication book and choosing the item that corresponded with her picture choice. We saw these skills maintain over various activities. On her final Summer School day, sentence structure (Phase IV) was started and clear progress was shown! 

Sandy’s progress is clear evidence that we should never assume what our learners can do, we should let them show us what they know! With effective teaching strategies our learners can accomplish beyond what is expected of them. I certainly, will try not to underestimate a learner again.  

Being ready for an iPad! 

Beth came to PECS Summer School with good persistence in communication (Phase II) and discrimination skills consistently around 70% (Phase III). The first few days focused on increasing these discrimination skills and then moving onto Phase IV. Beth reached over 80% accuracy in all four steps of sentence structure (Phase IV) in four days, which was amazing!  

Her mother then asked us if we thought a Speech Generating Device (SGD) would be appropriate. Beth was learning new pictures almost instantaneously at the Summer School, so her vocabulary was expanding rapidly, a key reason for trialling the SGD whilst at the Summer School. To help deduce whether transitioning to an SGD is a good idea for you learner take a look at our flow chart. You can find out more about our Transitioning from PECS to SGD training here.

Within a few days Beth could independently construct certain elements of a sentence on the SGD; putting the I want on the sentence strip and pressing the voice output button. Pyramid UK Consultant, Grace Payne, went to see Beth at her school following on from the Summer School and could see that her parents did a great job at maintaining and improving her skills across the rest of the summer as she was making sentences and navigating the SGD by herself.  

Moving onto an SGD is not compulsory but when appropriate it is something we would encourage, our decision is always based on what is best for the learner. 

Promoting balanced communication throughout the day  

One of the frequent errors people make when teaching PECS is using a specific location or activity, usually snack! This was the case with a few of our Summer School learners, meaning that we had to spend some time breaking habits before we could move on to teaching new skills.  

One young man, Billy, would exchange anything, even a piece of fluff, constantly when he wanted to access something. The frequency of this behaviour was exceptionally high and was likely because he was expected to communicate for everything in the day regardless of his motivation. We focused on teaching him to decline on occasions and that the presence of his communication book didn’t mean that he had to request. We are proud that his very specific levels of motivation were found and used to promote functional communication.  

One learner had only pictures of food within his communication book, so the focus was expanding his use of communication outside of this type of motivation. This meant all his food was freely accessible, and communication was encouraged in all other activities he took part in across the day. This strategy worked so well that he had over 10 new pictures in his communication book by the end his two weeks at Summer School.  

We are delighted with all our learners’ accomplishments, including the ones not listed here. All families and volunteers from around the world are so proud of them too for learning skills that are profoundly important for independence and happiness.  

by Grace Payne, Pyramid Consultant, Pyramid UK

© Pyramid Educational Consultants 2023