Activity Schedules vs PECS: What's the Difference?
Activity schedules and PECS both use pictures, and they're constantly confused — but they do opposite jobs. An activity schedule is a sequence of pictures a child follows, to work through a routine independently. PECS (the Picture Exchange Communication System) is a set of pictures a child gives to someone else, to communicate: to ask, comment and answer. One builds independence; the other builds communication.
I muddled them myself at first, and I had good reason to: the cards school sent home all looked the same. Laminated, Velcro-backed, same symbol style. Some were for a timetable and some were for requesting, and nobody tells you at the gate which is which. So here's the difference, the way I wish it had been explained to me.
The football version
Watch a good team and you'll see two different things going on.
There's the game plan: the shape, the drilled patterns, the set-piece routines worked out on the training-ground whiteboard. Every player knows what comes next without being told, because they've walked it a hundred times.
And there's the talk: the constant chatter on the pitch. The keeper organising the wall, the shout for the runner, the pointing before the corner. Almost a second language that only develops between people who play together.
A team needs both, and they're not interchangeable. The whiteboard doesn't shout "man on!", and shouting doesn't replace knowing the plan.
An activity schedule is the game plan. PECS is the talk.
What is PECS?
PECS is a structured communication programme developed by Pyramid Educational Consultants. A child learns, through six deliberate phases and usually with a trained adult, to exchange a picture card for the thing it stands for: handing over a "biscuit" card to request a biscuit. Over the phases that grows from single-card requests into sentence strips ("I want + biscuit"), then answering and commenting.
The key word is exchange. The picture travels from the child to another person, and its whole purpose is to carry a message. PECS is a communication system for children with little or no functional speech, and doing it properly is a taught protocol, not just showing pictures.
What is an activity schedule?
An activity schedule — the research term for what UK schools call a visual timetable used step by step — is a sequence of pictures or words showing activities or steps in order. The child learns to check the schedule, do the step, mark it done and move on, with adult prompting fading until the schedule itself is the only cue.
Here the picture doesn't travel anywhere. It's a reference the child reads, not a message the child sends. A review of 23 studies by Koyama and Wang found activity schedules effective at increasing engagement, on-task behaviour and independent transitions across a wide range of learners.
What's the actual difference?
| Activity schedule | PECS | |
|---|---|---|
| Football version | The game plan on the whiteboard | The talk on the pitch |
| Job | Following a routine independently | Communicating with another person |
| Direction | Child reads the pictures | Child gives the picture to someone |
| Skill built | Independence, transitions, self-management | Requesting, commenting, answering |
| Structure | Steps in order; prompts fade over time | Six taught phases, from exchange to sentences |
| Typical use | Morning routine, school day, task steps | Asking for food, toys, help, a break |
| Picture's role | A cue for the child | A message for the listener |
The confusion is understandable, as my kitchen folder proved: both tools often use the same symbol sets, the same laminator, the same Velcro. But handing a child a beautifully made schedule won't teach them to ask for things, and a PECS book won't walk them through getting dressed. They answer different questions: "what do I do next?" versus "how do I tell you what I want?"
Can you use both together?
Yes, and plenty of children do. They're complementary, the way the game plan and the on-pitch talk are. A child might follow an activity schedule through the morning routine and use PECS at the breakfast step to ask for which cereal they want. Specialist school settings routinely run both side by side, because independence and communication are both goals.
If you're choosing where to start, let the biggest daily friction decide. Meltdowns at transitions and constant "what's next?" anxiety point towards a schedule — my morning routine example is a concrete starting place. A child who can't yet make requests and is frustrated at not being understood points towards a communication programme like PECS, ideally guided by a speech and language therapist.
Where does StepPics fit?
Plainly: StepPics makes activity schedules, not PECS. It turns a typed sentence like "getting ready for swimming lessons" into a sequence of symbol steps you can print or follow on a phone. The pictures are PECS-style in the everyday sense — clear symbol cards, drawn from the open Mulberry Symbols library — but StepPics is not the PECS protocol, doesn't teach picture exchange, and isn't a communication system. Be suspicious of any schedule tool that claims otherwise.
I built it for the game-plan side of the problem, because that was the side drowning our kitchen in laminated cards: we needed the right sequence at the right moment, not another pack of pictures to sort. If you want to know whether the schedule side actually holds up in research before trying it, I've written up what the evidence says, limits included.