Teaching Requesting Skills to Children with Visual Impairment and Intellectual Disability by Using Picture Exchange Communication System Combined with Tangible Symbols

ABSTRACT

The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) has been widely used to teach functional requesting and commenting skills to children with autism spectrum disorder. Some researchers also modified the PECS to explore its effect on children with other disabilities. The main purpose of this study was to add tangible symbols to PECS (PECS-TS) in teaching requesting skills to three children with visual impairment (VI) and intellectual disability (ID) aged 6–12 years (two females, one male). A non-concurrent multiple probe design across participants was used in the present study to evaluate the effectiveness of the adapted training with PECS-TS. Data were collected across baseline, training, and maintenance conditions. Generalisation probes were also conducted. The results showed that all three participants who acquired the target requesting skills were able to generalise their use to similar untaught situations (different classrooms with different teachers), and they also reached the criterion during maintenance sessions. This study added to the evidence about using PECS-TS for students with VI and ID. Individualised symbols are very important for student success, however, more research is needed to establish PECS-TS as an evidence-based practice for children with VI and ID.

KEYWORDS:

• Children with visual impairment & intellectual disability
• communication
• PECS with tangible symbols
• requesting skills

Acknowledgments

We are very thankful to all the participated students, parents and teachers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the the Open Project Program of Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Development and Education for Special Needs Children [TJ202102]; 2022 China Disabled Persons’ Federation Project on Disability Assistance Devices.