Learn to look where you've already looked and try to see what you haven't seen yet.
De la Torre, S.
When we try to foster communication and language in nonverbal children, using images as visual aids is a very effective tool, along with role models, to help children integrate and begin to develop basic communication skills. Visual aids are used to help children integrate the information we reinforce verbally. I'll give you a few examples of how to carry out this work with five different approaches:
- Visual aids: “My Favorite Things”
It's very important to start with what's closest to the child, with what catches their attention. We're back to the topic of motivation again, so let's design a communication ceiling called “My Favorite Things” With their 3, 4, or 5 favorite things. We begin with that connection, which includes familiar, favorite, recognizable, and desirable objects. With this poster, which is usually placed on laminated cardboard with Velcro so you can play with the images, we can begin with:
· Do exchanges between the photo and the object
· Try skills such as signaling, giving him all the help he needs because those role models will ensure that tomorrow he will be able to do it alone or with as little help as possible.
· Work the association with two identical images of those objects, with similar or very different images, but always the same object. This will ensure that, even if our child is in the same environment as his favorite objects, he will work transversally on skills of discrimination, association and categorization.
Whenever we work on these types of activities, we must verbally reinforce the names of the objects. Before verbal expression comes the reception of the verbal message, that is, the ability to comprehend language, and that's where we need to start to ensure what the child understands and what he doesn't, in order to subsequently work on and nurture verbal development.
- 2. Visual supports: “My schedule”
A further step along this line would be, for example, to do a schedule Through images. We'll start, as always, with something simple and recognizable, such as choosing four or five images per day: from school, from home, a photo of him playing at home in the afternoon, a photo of his therapist, a photo of him having dinner or going to bed. Using real photos of him will help improve the internalization of these communication panels.
You'll see that after reviewing these routines before starting the day and/or after finishing it, there are moments of attention, preferences, and connections, and you'll begin to see ties of communication.
- 3. Supports: “People around me or my family”
Another idea for a communication ceiling can be the people around me either my family. If we want to work on communication and socialization, we must prioritize the people around us. Take photos of all the important people who are in direct contact with the child, and little by little, you can integrate these people into your schedule: mom, dad, siblings, grandparents, the teacher, and the therapist.
- 4. Visual supports: “My behaviors/My emotions”
Another idea of communication ceiling has a behavioral and emotional basis, with the goal of reinforcing all the things they do well and trying to reduce or eliminate those they don't do so well. It can be very helpful to develop a communication board for appropriate and inappropriate behaviors, so you can address all of these behaviors, not only at the time they occur, but also afterward (especially for inappropriate behaviors).
When he's receptive, like telling a story, we can look at photos of children doing superbly well and thus show him what we expect from him, what will make him happiest, and show him the path to social integration, respect for others, affection, and all those positive actions that enrich our lives. Photos of us hugging him, making him laugh, sharing things, giving him his favorite things, etc.
Don't try to tackle all of these activities at once. Choose the one that you intuitively feel might be right for your child, based on their preferences, abilities, developmental stage, or what's most immediate. Try to find a strategy to make that activity work and that can be transferred to many other activities.
All these visual tools will give us the opportunity to anticipate, a very important concept to keep in mind when helping nonverbal children who are clearly disoriented and need to know what's coming next. With these tools, we give them the opportunity to anticipate an activity or a sequence of activities, which will help them feel more emotionally calm. Furthermore, after systematic work, these tools become bridges that the child themselves can use to develop their communication skills.
Visual aids: PECS: Alternative Communication System
We mention here what are called PECS or Augmentative Communication System by exchanging images, for which there are many beliefs that its implementation delays the development of verbal language. I greatly respect the beliefs of everyone in this field, but I feel I need to unravel this myth, because everything that happens to children who implement this communication system is a lack of it: nonverbal children who require everything necessary to successfully promote this skill for their own mental and emotional health.
The first thing for nonverbal children is to create that need, that channel of communication, and then redirect it toward verbal and expressive language. The priority of communication is undeniable, so we cannot leave our children without this tool. If a child has the ability to communicate, they won't lose it just because they use PECS, signs, or another alternative communication system.