What about imitation, especially verbal imitation?

Imitation is an extremely important skill.  Many children with autism and related disabilities demonstrate very poor imitation abilities.  Imitation may involve body actions (i.e., clapping hands), manipulating objects (i.e., bouncing a ball), or vocal acts (i.e., sounds, words, or phrases).  If a child does not imitate one of these behaviors, it is very important to teach the skill.  One of our primary premises is that it is not necessary to be able to imitate a word in order to effectively communicate.  Many of the children with whom we have worked have acquired important functional communication skills via PECS while they have improved their imitation skills, including vocal imitation.  For many of these children, when their vocal imitation skills significantly improved, they have been able to imitate the words corresponding to the phrases they construct via the sentence strip.  However, in our view, during the period of time that these children were acquiring imitation skills they still were not able to communicate in a functional manner via speech.  Therefore, we strongly suggest that while children are taught PECS, parents and staff continue to put an emphasis upon teaching imitation skills.  However, it is best to teach one skill per lesson.  Therefore, PECS and verbal imitation lessons should not be merged.  Requests via PECS will be honored as a legitimate form of communication.  Opportunities to engage in imitation should be offered at other times throughout the day.  Many staff and parents work on vocal imitation within activities during which communication is not necessary (i.e., during free play when the child has unlimited access to toys).  Many staff conduct a morning-circle routine to promote imitation of words/sounds, sometimes within a song or other established routines.  In short, there is no conflict between PECS and imitation training, nor is it an either/or decision.