My son FINALLY has a functional yes & no

[saintlydamemrsturnip]

Aged 10

"is this a dog?'

He indicates yes/no on his VOCA

We have been trying for years.

He's finally 'got it'

Oh I could try that. So can DS1 read the word or does he just remember what you've said?

Tbh I think it might be a comprehension problem with DS2. I'm not sure he would know what I was asking him. The problem with having done so much table work with him is that he's 'locked in' to certain ways of responding. So for example, he's so used to naming pictures when I hold them up that he does this, no matter what I'm actually asking him to do. And today I was asking him 'What am I doing?' and miming an action. He responded with a perfect imitation of the action - because that's what we usually do with actions.

Sorry - am so embroiled in DS2 and receptive lang atm that I completely failed to say 'yay for DS1'

I touch it and he remembers.

If we're out and about and I don't know what he wants & have no relevant PECS I might touch opposite sides of a chair 'do you want to go HOME (touch one side) or MOORS (touch other side) then he indicates by tapping the relevant side.

I'm going to try this tomorrow - think it might get over the problem of him just echoing last thing I've said, which is what he does if he's unsure what I mean.

How about yes and no in relation to

Is the boy (in picture) jumping/sleeping ? That might be a way into testing verb knowledge? We are still struggling a bit with more verbs as he takes on new ones very slowly. But we started with the semi labelling approach just getting him to say the words sleeping, clapping, jumping in relation to figures in pictures.

We've done that too Cyber - and as I said above I've just started asking him 'What am I doing?' and miming an action. Having said yesterday that he was just imitating when I did this, today he started saying the verb while imitating. But I still think a lot of what he does is rote learning - he remembered what we did yesterday and just repeated it.

DS1's verb knowledge is really really shaky.

Does DS1 understand 'what, where, who, which' questions MrsT? That's where DS2 is very shaky.

I tried the 'yes' and 'no' on paper with DS2 today - but he just doesn't LOOK enough. Perhaps he's just a bit too young for ' Is this an X?' questions.

Where - tick
What - hmmm shaky tick at most
Who - cross
Which - cross

Day to day he does tend to just pick out the nouns then guess.

Mrs Turnip, could you build up on his "yes" answers by asking him things like "is there a dog in the picture?" or "are your shoes on the floor?" or would that be too difficult for him?

Probably too difficult at the moment - but I wonder if I could use it for things like 'is the cat under the table?' Good idea, thank you bullet.

That is interesting about the pieces of paper with yes or no on them, My lot don't have significant problems with language but have always found it difficult to answer choice questions so... I used to put my hands out and say " if you want to stay with DAddy touch this hand, if you want to come with me touch this hand", for some reason they found it easier to use actions than words when making a descision.
The development of language is a fascinating field, if I was a fresh young twenty something i would be tempted to go back to uni and study it.
PS: Congratulations on the breakthrough