I actually LOVE that one of our most frequently asked questions is, “What do I do when my SEN learner gets TOO good at using PECS (or speech, or a Speech Generating Device (SGD), or sign-language) and makes requests that I can’t honour as a teacher or caregiver?” If you have this problem, CONGRATULATIONS! What a great indicator of an individual’s success at learning to functionally communicate! This blog article will outline specific strategies for teaching our learners to tolerate when items or activities are unavailable. 

TO BEGIN WITH

When beginning to teach communication skills, it is important to remember that we reinforce all, or as many requests as are reasonably possible to help establish ourselves as “sources of good things”. In Phase I of PECS for example, we are setting up opportunities, so we should logically be able to honour all requests. As we give our students what they ask for, we think of the analogy of making deposits in a bank. When we are not able to honour requests, or delay too long, we are making withdrawals. We want to maintain a “positive account balance” at all times with our students!

In Phase II of PECS and beyond, we are using unstructured opportunities across the day, and so might not have a requested item available. In general though, at Phase II, we still recommend leaving a single picture of a likely desired item in that setting on the cover of the Communication Book. We should also be as flexible as possible if, after an exchange, they want something other than what is pictured. Remember, at Phase II, PECS learners do not necessarily know what pictures represent, so we want to simply honour communication. Past Phase IIIB, our learners understand how to access different items using different pictures. Even though we may, for example, set up an opportunity for a student to ask for art supplies with the pictures on the cover of the Communication Book, the student might go inside their Communication Book and exchange a picture of a tablet! Because we had many successful Correspondence Checks™, we know our learner really does want to play on the tablet, not paint! 

Again, think of the bank. If this is one of the first times your learner has done this, it would be absolutely ideal if a tablet could be quickly produced. Sometimes though, that is not possible. Or, your learner has clearly mastered asking for highly preferred items across settings and communication partners, and now you need to limit choices, so we are in a position of needing to say, “No.” 

HOW DO I SAY NO?

Take advantage of existing cues –  a drink is empty, a snack is gone, a battery is dead, a toy is broken or lost, the remote won’t work, or similar. We don’t hesitate to create a cue when needed! For example, I only give learners the amount of a snack, in a bowl or on a plate, that would be reasonable for them to eat. When they ask for more snack, I show them that it’s all gone! They don’t need to know there is more of that same snack hidden in the cupboard. We can remove batteries, switch a toy “off” (if the learner is unaware of the switch), changed passcodes and create similar cues. 

Change the focus to what is available. In the example above, if a learner asked me for a tablet that I could not give them in art, I might put pictures on the cover of the Communication Book of things I could give them if asked, such as paint, clay, or maybe even bubbles! 

Use  Critical Communication Skills

Often when we say, “No” what we really mean is “Wait”. A learner may not be able to use the swing now because another student is using it, but if they wait their turn, they can absolutely use the swing. We believe all learners should be taught how to wait via a structured lesson. Once the learner understands “wait”, it’s just a matter of us communicating more clearly and saying, “Wait for the swing” vs. “No swing.”

If the learner is independently using a visual schedule, we can use the schedule as a teaching tool. Remember, we would not expect a learner to understand pictures of things like “Gym vs. Literacy” on a visual schedule if they have not mastered Phase IIIB picture discrimination skills.  For example, if a learner asks for a puzzle during morning circle, I would take the student to the schedule, and show them, “Now we are in circle, but next we will be in free-play and you can choose puzzles.” 

Use a visual reinforcement system, such as I Am Working For or Earn-Do Cards. Everyone should know how to earn things; this is how we motivate people to participate in lessons and jobs. We have to teach this important skill (see pages 291-298 of the PECS Training Manual), but once our students have mastered it, when a student makes a request, we might sometimes show that we can honour it, if the student will “make a deal” with us and complete a certain amount of work. 

Take a look at our 1-day Teaching Critical Communication Skills online workshop. You can assess your learners Critical Communication Skills using this free downloadable checklist. Critical Communication Skills Timeline

Visually indicate that something is unavailable. Items such as our Universal “No” Page  and Universal “No” Symbols  can be helpful here.

Sometimes, the strategies above are almost magical, and one or more of them work very well for a learner or work in most situations. Of course, eventually we may be faced with a learner who is just plain angry about being denied access to something they want. We can all understand this feeling! In these cases, we need to be prepared, we may encounter Contextually Inappropriate Behaviour, such as the learner breaking an item. It is important, especially with an older and/or larger learner, that the team has developed a response plan in advance, so if we have said, “No,” there is a way we can mean it and keep everyone safe.

What we would never, ever do, and in fact see as an ethical violation, is remove pictures of unavailable items from a Communication Book. Although we don’t always have the right to get what we want, we do all have the right to ask for what we want, in all situations, at all times. This can be difficult, but we see it as part of the learning process and something that all people go through. Also remember that many contextually inappropriate behaviours occur because individuals don’t have the required communication skills to get their needs met appropriately. In the long run, if pictures are removed from the Communication Book, or the learner does not have access to the Communication Book at all times of the day we are removing the most important behaviour strategy our students have and we will eventually see worse behaviour. 

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By Jaime Wedel, Pyramid Consultant
© Pyramid Educational Consultants, 2022