Picture Exchange Communication

When we first started Aiden was completly nonverbal and he couldn't point to tell us what he wanted. Our wonderful Speech Therapist (that has been with us since he was 2) started us off using the PECS (picture exchange communication here) The brand name system was to much for us to buy, so I decided to make my own. I bought the following items:
big binder
plastic binder page dividers (not the thin ones)
velcro
laminator
laminating pages
ink for my computer
cardstock
I went to Mayer-Johnson the company that makes boardmaker and I signed up for a free one week trail offer. I ran my poor printer and laminator to death! I had enough for the main book and so much more!! Mayer-Johnson is running the free 1 week trail right now! Go here and sign up. I do own Boardmaker now(thanks to my aunt and uncle, best gift ever!) It is a great resource!! I also made him a schedule using the pictures I printed out. We cut out the squares then laminated them and cut them out of the laminating paper after we ran it in the machine. We found that if you run the whole page with out cutting them out first sometimes the lamiantor paper would peel off after you cut them out. Also make sure you don't cut to close to the paper, leave a little of the lamintaing paper so it won't peel off.Then we attached small pieces of velcro on the back and a strip on the page dividers to attach them to. **very important!! Make sure you use the same side of velcro on all the backs and the opposite piece of velcro on the dividers, you want to make sure they are all the same, trust me it makes you really upset when you realize that you put the pointy side on the backs and the pointy side down on the dividers and they won't stick to each other!!*** I also made travel versions that I'll add pictures of later.