Repercussion of the implementation of the Picture Exchange Communication System - PECS in the overload index of mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Letting moms watch 24 PECS sessions slightly cuts their stress while the child learns new words.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Ferreira et al. (2022) ran 24 one-on-one speech sessions. Each child with autism came with mom in the room.
The team tracked how heavy moms felt their load before and after the course. They also scored the kids’ words and problem behaviors.
What they found
Moms reported a small drop in caregiver burden. Kids added new words and showed fewer non-adaptive acts.
The gains were real but modest—medium for vocabulary, small for mom stress.
How this fits with other research
Preston et al. (2009) already showed PECS gives kids a fast way to ask for things. Ferreira adds that having mom watch the sessions may chip away at her stress at the same time.
Fairthorne et al. (2016) looked at moms of autistic kids without any help and saw high psychiatric care use. That sounds opposite, but Jenny’s data came from hospital records, not families in a therapy study. The clash fades once you see one paper measures “life as usual” and the other tests an active program.
Koudys et al. (2025) moved the same idea online. Their telehealth PECS parent package got large gains in mom accuracy and child requests. Ferreira’s small burden drop may grow if clinics switch to the later, stronger model.
Why it matters
You can lighten mom’s load a little just by letting her sit in on PECS sessions. The child still gains words, so you serve two clients at once. If you want bigger parent relief, pair in-person training with the newer telehealth tools. Either way, invite caregivers into the room—no extra cost, possible payoff.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The aim of this study was to analyze the repercussion of the implementation of PECS on the burden index of mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This was a longitudinal study (CEP 0403/2017). The sample consisted of 20 mother and child with ASD. The mothers were on average 41 years and 5 months and the children were 7 years and 2 months old. Fifteen children were male and five were female. The brazilian version of the Burden Interview scale was applied to verify the level of caregiver burden. The Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC) was applied to the analysis of non-adaptive behaviors and to analyze the lexical repertoire: Auditory and Expressive Vocabulary Tests. The PECS Implementation Program was composed of 24 sessions of individual speech therapy with the active presence of mothers. At the end all children and mothers were reevaluated with part of the instruments. There was a tendency to reduce maternal overload indexes after the implementation of the PECS. There was a significant decrease in non-adaptive behaviors and an increase in the expressive and auditory vocabulary indexes of the children at the final moment of the study. We did not observe a significant correlation between the degrees of overload with age, schooling and intellectual quotient of children, nor schooling and maternal socioeconomic status. It was possible to analyze the repercussion of the implementation of the PECS on the burden of mothers of children with ASD assisted by the Program.
CoDAS, 2022 · doi:10.1590/2317-1782/20212021109