10-Minute Speech Practice That Doesn't Require Sitting Still

Last updated 2026-07-10

What is PECS and why do parents teach it at home?

PECS stands for Picture Exchange Communication System. Andy Bondy and Lori Frost built it in the late 1980s while working with preschoolers with autism in Delaware's public schools, and the early research reached the peer-reviewed literature in the following years ^[1]. The idea is simple. A child hands a picture to a communication partner in exchange for what they want. No pointing first. No eye contact required. The exchange itself builds communication intent from the ground up.

Parents teach it at home because a therapy session is usually one hour a week. That leaves 167 other hours where nothing happens unless you make it happen. PECS sticks through repetition across real places: the kitchen, the bedroom, the backyard. A therapist can train you in the method, but you run the sessions during breakfast, bath time, and every snack in between.

One thing to settle before you start. PECS is not a substitute for a speech-language evaluation. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) recommends that AAC choices, PECS included, come out of a broader communication assessment ^[2]. If your child has no evaluation yet, read about early intervention and request one through your school district or your state's early intervention program. Starting PECS at home while you wait causes no harm, and the research backs doing exactly that.

Does PECS actually work, or is this just a popular trend?

The evidence holds up, with honest limits. A 2010 meta-analysis by Flippin, Reszka, and Watson reviewed 14 studies and found PECS produced reliable gains in functional communication for children with autism, strongest in phases 1 and 2 ^[3]. A separate systematic review reached similar conclusions but flagged that evidence for speech development beyond PECS use itself is more mixed ^[4].

The short version: PECS reliably teaches kids to start communicating, which is the hardest skill to teach. Whether it grows spoken words depends on the child. Some gain speech alongside PECS, some do not. Nobody has clean data on exactly who gets the speech boost. The closest studies suggest children who already have some vocalizations are more likely to see speech climb ^[9].

For kids using echolalia or living with apraxia of speech, PECS runs a parallel channel that does not compete with speech practice. It is not either-or.

If your child outgrows paper pictures, AAC devices and dedicated apps are the next step. PECS is a bridge, not a ceiling.

What materials do you actually need to get started?

You need less than you think. The floor is a set of picture symbols, a way to carry them, and a willing partner (you). Here is what most families put together.

Picture symbols. Pyramid Educational Consultants sells the official PECS materials at prices that vary by package ^[8]. For home use, many families print low-cost symbols or photograph the actual items in their house. Real photos of your child's specific snacks and toys often work better than generic clipart, especially early on.

A communication binder. A three-ring binder with Velcro strips on each page does the job. You attach pictures with Velcro so the child can pull them off and hand them over. A 1-inch binder costs under five dollars. A roll of Velcro tape runs two to four dollars. You do not need an expensive pre-made PECS binder to start.

A sentence strip. For phase 4 and beyond, you need a small cardstock strip with Velcro where the child lines up pictures in order. Print one.

A second person. Phases 1 and 2 need a physical prompter behind the child. A partner, grandparent, or older sibling who understands the role all work.

Total cost to start: five to fifteen dollars if you print your own symbols. The official PECS starter kit runs roughly sixty to one hundred dollars, and the PECS Level 1 Training manual is priced separately ^[8]. Buy the manual if you can. It explains the physical prompting procedures in detail, and skipping it means filling the gaps with guesswork.

What are the 6 phases of PECS and what does each one look like at home?

Here is the full progression. Parents can usually handle phases 1 through 3 on their own. Phase 4 onward gets easier with SLP check-ins, but daily home practice stays your job.

Phase 1 in practice. You sit across from your child. A physical prompter sits behind the child. You hold something your child wants (a favorite snack, a toy) at eye level. The prompter guides the child's hand to pick up the picture and move it toward you. The instant the picture touches your hand, you take it, say the word with real enthusiasm ("Cookie!"), and hand over the item. No extra talking. No "say cookie." The exchange is the whole point. Repeat ten to twenty times per session. Five minutes is plenty.

Phase 2 in practice. Now you are not sitting right next to the child. Back away a little. The communication book is nearby but not in the child's hand. The child has to get up, go to the book, grab the picture, find you, and hand it over. This teaches that communication takes effort and travels across distance, which is the whole foundation of real-world requesting.

Phase 3A in practice. Put two pictures on the book: one the child wants, one they clearly do not (pick something obviously undesirable at first). When they hand you the wrong one, give them that item with a neutral face. Getting something they do not want usually nudges the child to look more carefully next time. No verbal correction.

Phase 4 in practice. Add the sentence strip. It has an "I want" symbol fixed on the left. The child puts the item picture next to it, pulls the strip off, and hands you the whole thing. You read it back: "Oh, you want cracker!" Then give the cracker. This phase takes the longest for most children.

Phases 5 and 6 cover answering questions and commenting, which are more abstract. If you have access to speech therapy at any point, these are good phases to work on with a professional.

How do you choose the right pictures to start with?

Start with three to five items your child genuinely wants to get. Not items you think are good for them. Not vegetables at phase 1. The item has to be something your child would work for, something they reach toward, point at, or melt down over losing.

Common first PECS items: a specific snack (crackers, chips, a juice box), a preferred toy (a spinning top, a certain car, bubbles), a sensory item (a squeeze toy, a fidget). Bubbles are a classic phase 1 pick because the child has to request more after each turn and you control the supply.

Take real photos when you can. A photo of your child's exact goldfish cracker bag says more than a generic cracker symbol. Print at 2 by 2 inches, laminate with self-laminating pouches (under ten dollars for a pack), and stick Velcro on the back.

As the child moves through phases, expand the picture set to include more foods, activities, places, and people. Do not add pictures faster than the child can tell them apart. More pictures are not better if the child cannot pick the right one reliably.

How do you prompt correctly without creating prompt dependence?

Prompt dependence is the real risk with any picture system. If your child only exchanges pictures when you hover, you have not taught communication. You have taught compliance with prompting.

The PECS manual is specific here: physical prompts come from behind, never from the front. You, facing the child as the communication partner, never reach forward to help. The prompter behind the child guides the hand and stays out of the child's line of sight. The reason matters. The child needs to see you as the target of communication, not the helper.

Fade prompts on a set path: full physical (hand over hand), then partial physical (a touch at the wrist), then gestural (point toward the picture), then nothing. Drop to a lighter prompt as soon as the child completes the step two or three times without the heavier one.

If your child stalls, back up one prompt level. Do not wait it out. Do not ask "do you want it?" or say "give me the picture." Those verbal prompts turn into crutches fast.

For children with childhood apraxia of speech, the physical exchange often feels more natural than speech attempts. Let that be the main channel while speech therapy works the motor planning separately.

How many sessions per day does a child need to make real progress?

More is better, but quality beats quantity. Short, high-motivation sessions work better than one long forced sit-down. Aim for thirty to fifty exchange opportunities a day across all contexts.

The PECS approach starts with many brief opportunities spread through the day, not formal sessions at a table ^[8]. Thirty to fifty sounds like a lot until you build it into meals, snacks, play, and transitions. Then it adds up fast.

Breakfast alone can give you ten: the picture for cereal, for milk, for a spoon. Snack time, another five to ten. Play, another ten to fifteen. You do not need a therapy room.

Track your data, even roughly. A tally mark on a sticky note works. Data tells you when to move up a phase and when something is off. Without it, you are guessing. The official PECS system includes data sheets, or make a simple grid on paper with the date, the target picture, and whether the exchange happened independently or with prompting.

If progress has flatlined for three weeks with no change in your data, that is your signal to consult a speech-language pathologist, even for one session. Online speech therapy has made those consults far easier to reach for families where local SLPs are thin on the ground.

What mistakes do parents most often make when teaching PECS at home?

Talking too much during exchanges. Phase 1 asks for almost no talking from you. The classic mistake is narrating: "Good job! You gave me the picture! Do you want the cracker?" All of that delays the exchange and piles on auditory noise. Say the name of the item, give the item, move on.

Using PECS as a quiz. Holding up a picture and asking "what's this?" is not PECS. PECS is always child-initiated. The child wants something and acts to get it. Drilling pictures without motivation kills the whole system.

Adding too many pictures too fast. More pictures feel like progress, but if the child cannot tell them apart reliably, you have made the system harder for no gain. Add one new picture at a time. Test it against a clearly different picture before adding more.

Leaving the book behind. The communication book has to be as available as your phone. If it sits on a living room shelf while your child needs something in the kitchen, the system is dead. Keep the book, or a small set of pictures, wherever your child spends time.

Skipping the other caregivers. Grandparents, daycare workers, and siblings all need the basics. A child who exchanges pictures at home but gets things handed over without any exchange at school is getting mixed signals. One page of instructions and a quick demonstration usually trains another adult.

When should PECS move on to a speech-generating device or app?

PECS is a strong start, but paper pictures have hard limits. You can only carry so many. They get wet, torn, and lost. As vocabulary grows, hunting for the right picture slows communication down.

Most speech-language pathologists suggest looking at an AAC device or app once the child requests reliably across phases 3 and 4, uses thirty or more concepts regularly, and shows interest in talking about things beyond the immediate want. Those signs mean the child's drive to communicate has outgrown what a small binder can hold.

The move from PECS to a speech-generating device does not mean starting over. The concepts carry across. The child already knows symbols stand for things and that handing over a symbol gets a result. A device just holds a bigger symbol set and adds voice output.

For families weighing what comes next, Little Words has a quiz at /start that helps match the right communication support to your child's current profile, including whether PECS, a device, or a different approach fits best.

For autistic children specifically, the autism spectrum speech therapy page has a wider look at communication options across different profiles.

Can PECS work for children who are not autistic?

Yes. PECS was built with autistic children, but the research includes other diagnoses. Children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, apraxia of speech, global developmental delay, and other conditions affecting speech output have all been studied with PECS.

The test is a real gap between what the child understands and what they can say out loud. If a child follows language but cannot or does not produce functional speech, PECS targets that expressive gap head-on.

ASHA's stance on AAC is plain: no individual should be denied the opportunity to access AAC based on age, motor ability, or cognitive level ^[2]. PECS is one form of AAC. The same principle covers it.

Children with apraxia of speech often find PECS useful during the stretch before speech becomes functional, because picking up and handing a picture asks far less of the motor system than the planning that speech demands.

How do you know if your child is ready for PECS, or if they need something else first?

PECS has almost no prerequisites. The original research was clear on this: PECS does not require eye contact, imitation skills, or any existing communication ^[1]. That is one of its real advantages over older approaches.

What the child does need is some ability to reach for or move toward wanted objects, plus enough fine motor control to pick up and let go of a card. Most children over eighteen months can manage this. Younger children, or children with significant motor impairment, may need adapted materials: larger cards, a magnetic board, or a modified exchange movement.

If a child has practiced PECS daily for two to three months and is stuck in phase 1, the most useful next step is a formal evaluation. It can tell you whether the system needs tweaking, whether a different AAC approach fits better, or whether sensory or motor issues need attention first. Connect with an SLP through your school district (under IDEA, children ages 3 to 21 qualify for evaluations at no cost to families) ^[5], or through your state's early intervention program for children under three ^[6].

What do you do when your child throws the pictures or refuses to engage?

Thrown pictures usually mean one of three things: the item is not motivating enough, the prompt is too heavy, or the child is swamped by how many pictures sit on the board.

Try this. Strip the book down to one picture of the single most-wanted item. Make the exchange trivially easy to pull off. Use a lighter prompt or none at all, then wait to see if the child tries it alone when the item is in view. Sometimes backing up two steps in the prompt hierarchy is the right call even when it feels like going backward.

Refusal during a session is also information. It can mean the session ran too long, the timing was wrong, or the child is not regulated enough to learn. Communication learning needs a calm enough nervous system. A dysregulated child will not get anything from the session no matter how cleanly you run the technique. Ten minutes after a meltdown is not the time to practice PECS.

Some children do better with motivating activities than objects. If your child loves being chased around the room, a picture for "chase" works as well as a picture for "cookie." Match the exchange to what actually reinforces the child right now, not what seems appropriate on paper.

If you keep hitting walls and want a structured home program, an early intervention coordinator or a consulting SLP can run one or two coaching sessions to watch your technique and adjust it. That targeted help often beats ongoing weekly sessions, because you are the one running the program day to day.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to teach PECS phase 1?

Phase 1 can click in days for some children and take several weeks for others. Research typically sets mastery as independent exchanges across three straight sessions, but the timeline swings hard by child, by how motivating the chosen items are, and by how consistently you apply the prompting. If phase 1 has not clicked after four weeks of daily practice, the likeliest culprit is that the items are not motivating enough.

Do I need to buy official PECS materials or can I use free pictures?

You do not need official materials to start. Print real photos of your child's preferred items, use image search, or pull from free symbol libraries online. The Pyramid Educational Consultants manual is worth buying because it walks through the prompting procedures in detail, but the pictures themselves can be homemade. Total startup cost with printed photos and a basic binder is under fifteen dollars.

Can PECS be taught to a toddler under age 2?

Yes, with some adaptation. PECS has been used with children as young as fourteen to eighteen months in research settings. The main requirement is enough fine motor control to pick up and release a card. For very young children, use larger cards, lighter lamination, and Velcro strong enough to hold but loose enough for a small hand to pull free. Keep sessions to two or three minutes with highly preferred items only.

Will PECS stop my child from trying to talk?

No, and this is one of the most common fears parents carry in. The research does not support the idea that AAC suppresses speech. The 2010 review by Flippin and colleagues found no evidence PECS reduced vocalizations, and some studies showed speech attempts rising alongside PECS use. ASHA's position matches: AAC supports natural speech, it does not replace it. Keep responding with real enthusiasm to any sound your child makes during exchanges.

What if my child grabs items without using pictures at all?

Common early on. The fix is controlling access to preferred items so the exchange becomes the only reliable route to them. Keep snacks out of reach, put favorite toys in clear containers the child cannot open, and wait for the exchange before giving access. Do not withhold the item for long. The goal is a brief pause that makes the picture exchange the easier path, not deprivation.

Does PECS work for children who are mostly nonverbal but have some words?

Yes, and it works well next to whatever speech the child has. If your child says "ba" for ball sometimes but not reliably, PECS gives them a steady communication tool while you keep building speech. Accept the picture exchange and any vocalization with equal enthusiasm. Over time many children pair sounds or approximations with their exchanges, which is a good sign and worth reinforcing.

How many pictures should be in the book at each phase?

Phase 1: one picture, one item, full stop. Phase 2: still one to three pictures, working distance rather than discrimination. Phase 3A: two pictures, one wanted and one clearly not. Phase 3B: build up to six to ten pictures as the child shows reliable discrimination. Phase 4 and beyond: as many as the child can handle reliably, typically ten to thirty for home users, organized by category with divider tabs.

Can grandparents or babysitters help with PECS, or does one person have to do all the teaching?

Other caregivers can and should help. Generalizing across partners is a goal, not a complication. The key is a short training session where you show the physical prompt procedure and the rule about not talking too much during exchanges. A one-page visual guide posted in the kitchen helps. Inconsistent implementation across partners does slow progress, so a brief orientation earns its keep.

What phase of PECS should I work on if my child already uses some pointing?

Start with a PECS assessment rather than assuming a phase. Pointing is a communication behavior, but it is not PECS. Run the phase 1 conditions: does the child independently pick up a picture and hand it to a partner without prompting? If not, start at phase 1 even if they can point. If they clear phase 1 on their own, assess phase 2, and so on. The assessment takes thirty to sixty minutes and tells you exactly where to begin.

Is PECS covered by insurance or government funding?

The materials themselves (binder, pictures) cost little enough that insurance rarely applies. PECS parent training may be covered if an SLP bills it under a speech therapy benefit. Under IDEA, schools must provide communication supports including AAC at no cost to families when it is part of a child's IEP. Medicaid waivers in many states cover AAC evaluation and materials. Your state's early intervention program is the first call for children under three.

How is PECS different from just using picture schedules?

A picture schedule shows a child what happens next in the day. It is receptive support, helping the child read the environment. PECS is expressive: the child starts a communication act to get something they want. Both are useful and often run together, but they teach different skills. PECS builds initiation. Picture schedules build predictability and smoother transitions. A child can gain from both at once.

My child uses PECS at home but not at school. What do I do?

This is a generalization problem, and it is common. Share your home procedure with the school team in writing: which pictures are in the book, which prompt level you are at, and what items motivate your child. Ask that the school use the same book and procedure. If your child has an IEP, PECS should be listed as a communication support with implementation details. An IEP meeting to line up procedures is appropriate, and you can request one at any time.

Sources

1. Bondy AS, Frost LA. The Picture Exchange Communication System. Behavior Modification, 2001: PECS was developed by Andy Bondy and Lori Frost and published with early research in the peer-reviewed literature describing the six-phase system
2. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, AAC position statement: ASHA states no individual should be denied AAC access based on age, motor, or cognitive level and recommends AAC decisions be part of a broader communication assessment
3. Flippin M, Reszka S, Watson LR. Effectiveness of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) on communication and speech for children with autism spectrum disorders: a meta-analysis. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 2010: Meta-analysis of 14 studies found PECS produced reliable increases in functional communication, with strongest effects in phases 1 and 2, and no evidence that PECS reduced vocalizations
4. Tien KC. Effectiveness of the Picture Exchange Communication System as a Functional Communication Intervention for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 2008: Systematic review confirmed PECS reliably teaches communication initiation but found evidence for speech development beyond PECS use is more mixed
5. U.S. Department of Education, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) overview: Under IDEA, children ages 3 to 21 are eligible for evaluations and services including AAC at no cost to families through the public school system
6. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, early childhood programs: Children under age three with developmental delays can receive early intervention services including speech-language services through Part C of IDEA administered by states
7. American Academy of Pediatrics, autism patient care resources: AAP supports use of augmentative and alternative communication strategies including picture-based systems for children with autism who have limited spoken communication
8. Pyramid Educational Consultants, PECS official training and materials: Official PECS starter materials and Level 1 Training manuals are available commercially; the system includes six phases with specific prompting and data collection procedures
9. Ganz JB, Davis JL, Lund EM, Goodwyn FD, Simpson RL. Meta-analysis of PECS with individuals with ASD: investigation of targeted versus non-targeted outcomes, participant characteristics, and implementation phase. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 2012: Meta-analysis confirmed PECS produced positive outcomes for communication initiation and found children with existing vocalizations more likely to show speech increases alongside PECS use
10. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), assistive devices for speech and language disorders: NIDCD describes picture-based AAC systems as evidence-supported tools for individuals with speech and language disorders, including children with autism