Understanding questions-how do you help your DC?

[tiredmummyoftwo]

Hi, some of you may remember DS (4.6) diagnosed ASD (we believe on the mild side, although dx classic), has come a long way with respect to behaviour, eating, sleeping and to some extent speech wise. He can pretty much talk about everything, i.e, describing a picture well, asking for food when he is hungry, can communicate his need, tells us if he feels sad. But it is still one sided, it's only what he wants, what he can tell, not what we ask him. Especially ee has severe delay with respect to questions, he has been able to answer questions like what is it, who is it, what colour is it or what are you doing since the age of 3, but it stayed the same. We have not been able to get him to anwer questions like'did you go to school today?' or 'what did you do at the school today?' He just does not seem to understand these type of questions. Any ideas from anybody?

How long did it take for your dc to answer these type of questions? When did they start having a conversation with you? How did it happen? DH always gets upset because he feels he can't have a conversation with his son. Please tell us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyone?

Sounds similar to my DS1 - he only answers questions that have a specific answer - 'Who did you see at school?' - He will answer with the name of the teacher but cannot answer a more open 'What did you do ?' question. He can say he is tired or cold etc on his own terms but cannot answer a 'How do you feel?' question. The Hanen More Than Words (Partner stage) has ideas - I'll have a look and get back to you. Sorry no real answers here but if he has got this far already, the chances are he will progress to higher levels

Thanks cyber. I have never got any Hanen book, only found out about these books from mumsnet (somehow we were left to find our own way after the dx) and we don't live in the UK anymore. May be I will look on e-bay to see anybody selling their copy and get somebody to bring it to us next time they are visiting

Hi. My DD2 age 4.5 has same sort of problem and I'm still trying to figure it all out. We have exactly the same results when asking questions. I have to pre-teach her the answers (literally, and also by giving example answers). Now, when she does answer questions, I'm not sure if she's just parroting her pre-learnt phrases or actually understands what I'm asking. Sometimes she gives an appropriate answer, sometimes there's no response, sometimes the answer is way off mark - it's inconsistant and quite baffling. Can your DS look through a story book and retell it in his own words? We're having problems with this at the mo.
DD2 is partially deaf. Problems with abstract concepts (questions/emotions/time) are common amongst hearing impaired children, as are language delays/problems because deafness=communication difficulty. Having attended an ASD training day, I was astounded how the communication/social problems of ASD correlate to that deaf children (communication/language difficulties = impaired social skills etc). On the other hand, I've been told DD2's problem is MORE that expected considering her level of deafness (opinion depends on who you talk to!). Therefore she is having a range of assessments .
So, is this sort of problem: lack of vocab, word retieval difficulty, expressive language problem, auditory processing disorder, difficulty with abstract concepts from problems with receptive language, visual learners with poor auditory processing development....etc etc. I wish I knew. If I find any answers and good teaching tips I'll let you know.

Sorry I can't help you, only to say that I understand what you're feeling because I have a similar child.

have been through similar with language delayed DS, now 5.9. Not sure exactly where yourlad is at - but when my DS was 4 he also struggled with questions - often needed simplification "what eat at school/what play at school/what doing??". SALT advised using visuals - pictures or signs for the question words to help. Instead of "what did you do at school" try a mixture of commenting and open and closed questions eg. "you went to school today! what did you do at school? did you play with trains? no? did you do drawings? yes. drawing is fun!". Might also help at first if you have pictures of the classroom/classroom activites to help prompt him. It is surprisingly difficult for a kid with language delay to talk about someting that's not visually in front of him iyswim. Use photos/visuals to help bridge that gap. At this age DS was starting to talk about what he could see around him -the shop is shut/the tree has no leaves - that sort of thing - so although not full blown conversation, it didn't just feel like a litany of requests for juice/chocolate etc!

Agree with Cyber that Hanen books have useful info about question words/conversational turns/encouraging better conversational turns.

This is quite a good description of rough hierarchy in terms of answering questions.

Question-asking skills - receptive language.

1. "Where's Mummy/teddy/something exciting?" by looking at the object or otherwise reacting in a way to show understanding.

1. Choice questions

start with holding one of each in your hands or using a visual.

1. "Where's the X?" on a picture - respond by pointing.

1. Go get/show me the X.

(v) ideally, from another room (iv)if that's too hard, try from across the room (iii)if that's too hard, from a selection on the floor (ii) if that's too hard, from two objects in the adult's hands (i) if that's too hard, adult takes child's hand and selects hand over hand.

1. "What's that?" - respond with appropriate noun

1. "Yes/No".

7. Respond to "Where's mummy?" with an answer like "at work" or "in the sitting room"

1. Object function questions

"Who says moo? Does a sheep say moo? NO! A Sheep!" "Can you point to something that we wear?" "What do we need to make dinner? yes - the pot".

1. Critical thinking questions - making inferences.

"What do we wear when it's cold?"

10. Categories
    "Which one is an animal? Which one is a building?"

11. Negation - "which one is not wearing a hat?"

12. Quantity
    "Can you give me the rest of them?" "Can you put some in the box?"

Also, if you search under my name and the topic visual calendars, you will get a lot of info (I'm a salt and discuss language issues extensively under the Special Needs topic.)

When it comes to questions we have been told by SALT not to ask him opened direct questions.

Like for example not to ask him 'what did you have to eat at nursery today?'
but to say 'at nursery did you eat banana? or grapes?'

She said to guide him to the answers, to give him two options to choose from, and that if we know what the answer is, then to use that option last in the two choices, iyswim?
like in the example above if we know he's had grapes, then say banana first, then grapes.

Kissingfrogs, my DS gives pre-learnt answers like your DD if we try to teach him the answers. It is exactly like your DD sometimes appropriate, sometimes way off the mark. He can retell stories in his own words, only started recently.

Totalchaos, that's a very good idea about school pictures, I will ask his 1.1 to take pictures. He does talk about everything in front of him like you said-door shut, mummy sitting etc. and if I can give him the time, he would rather play with me doing things all day and not dip into his world.

Moondog, DS has no problem upto no-7 of the hierarcy, and he is nearly there with no-8. He can also answer no-9 questions like tell me something yellow. He has no problem with no-10 and gets no 11 and 12 right most of the time, but can't about things he has done in the past. I will do the search tonight when the kids are in bed, would it be alright if I ask you questions about things I don't get?

Mysonben, DS almost always get close ended questions right. If you ask him did you eat grapes or banana, he will give you the right answer.

All very familiar, very similar pattern of development in DS2 (4.4) - found "hard" ones like "how many?" easy and "easy" ones like "what did you do today?" impossible. This is the year when DS2 is cracking it though. I agree with all the advice you've had.

Please tell your DH to take heart. You have lots of good advice on this thread and most of use who are getting through the tunnel feel that well-used visuals are key here. As well as "More than Words", the book I cannot recommend highly enough to you and your DH is "visual strategies for improving communication" by Linday Hodgson. What's particularly valuable in this work is the introductory chapter which explains why visuals work when other things don't. Once you've really grasped what visuals are doing that language isn't, and how you can create "visual bridges", you can tailor-make solutions for your own child and you can explain it all better to staff at school (who tend to think of visual aids as something to "get over" or "get beyond" and who therefore tend to use them inappropriately or not at all). Ideally, you want the TA to read this book too.

If he's making remarks about the present all the time, he may not be far off from chatting about the past once he has the visual backup. For chatting/communicating about past times, I suggest taking photos of all events and buy several of those photo holders that allow you to display 20 or 30 photos on your wall. This is a great visual aid because it doesn't look "therapyish" so outsiders and visitors can join in and comment on them too. Comment on the photos often using phrases that can become a model for your DS eg:

"We bought grapes at the supermarket"
"Remember, we went to the beach?"
"Remember, it snowed at our house!"
"Remember, nana came to our house?"
"Remember, there was a Christmas tree in the sitting room"?

I found "Remember" a really useful word combined with photos of the family's recent history. The trigger-word "remember" told DS2 that we were talking about the past. Then, when he wanted to talk about the past, he could invoke it clearly by just using the one word "remember" ("Remember, nana's trampoline!") even if his grammar wasn't up to doing it verbally. (he still has no idea what "remember" actually means ie opposite of "forget" but that doesn't matter). "Remember, we went to the beach" looking at a photo is a sort of past tense equivalent of "mummy's sitting down" so hopefully he's not too far off that? And if you could get to that, then DH could make up photo albums to mull over together....

Also involving your DH, if you have managed to do family meals, then you can use these to model for DS ie
you:"DH, did you go to work today?"
DH: "Yes, I went to work/no, I didn't go to work today, I stayed at home."

dh: "what did you do today?"
you: I went to work/I picked up DS from school. Did you go to school today DH?

dh: "no, grownups don't go to school. Boys go to school"

etc, etc, ad nauseam over about 6 months but it will all be so worth it in the end.......

That's a really useful list MD - We are stuck at about 7 -8 but DS1 has more severe language problems so really I'm pleased we are slogging through the list at all as I really thought he would never speak at all.

Oh, the epigraph from that book on visual aids:

"I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand"

Confucious, apparently!

I get "don't ask me any questions or I have no power and have switched of my brain or I can't remember or I forgot".

Lingle, where did you get the Hanen book from? Did you order it direct or from amazon? Why is it so expensive on amazon whereas it is only $49 on hanen website. I think if I add the postal cost to here, it will still not come to amazon price.

I borrowed it from another mumsnetter. You might find someone prepared to lend it to you. I will be returning my copy to the person who sent it to me very soon as I've finished with it now.

Of course you can Tired.
Also as I sadi , search under my name or that of the people posting here, all of whom really know a lot.

Cyber, that's good to know!

He has become much better at giving different answers to the same fairly open question eg 'What can you see out of the window?' - He will now say sky, grass, swing, snow. lights or whatever he can see . Until now he has tended to give only one answer to such a question so I'm hoping his mind is becoming more flexible and realising that there is not just one way to answer an open question. He has learned and generalised I fairly well as a pronoun but appends to the end of a sentence - 'Want bed I' - it's a pity it's not Latin he's learning where word order does not matter !

Well, Lingle, I have just ordered the more than words book and DVD and talkability and visual strategies book to a friends address (the postage to here was coming to over £100, so thought I can get somebody to send it to me by post, which will be cheaper I am sure). Don't know when I am going to get them though, but I can't borrow it from anybody in the UK as we are not in the UK at present. Wait till DH hears it!!!!

Moondog, you don't exist on MN search unless there is something wrong with the search engine at present, nothing comes up when I do search under your name or visual calender.

Eh?
I am lowercase m remember.

"Wait till DH hears it!!!!"

lol .

Apologies for jumping on your thread tired but I just wanted to say a quick thank you to Moondog.

My DD 3.7 was diagnosed ASD last month and when I asked the SLT how far she was behind in her language she said it was all part of the condition?

Your list has been of invaluable help. At least now I know how to work on asking questions and it seems DD is maybe not doing too badly . Why why why could DD's SLT not give me some guidance!!!!!!!!!!!

More details here eviebaby

teachmetotalk.com/2008/02/26/techniques-to-work-on-answering-questions-with-langu age-delayed-toddlers/

The Teach me to Talk site is very good because the SALT puts a lot of focus on receptive language problems.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/750157-Radio-programmes-on-receptive-language-delay-www-te achmetotalk-com

thread showing some of our reactions to the radio show listing these question-answering techniques ~(some quite amusing bits in the thread - the speech therapist came on to mumsnet to apologise for her tone during her podcast!)

And here's another one
www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=special_needs&threadid=752062-another-receptive-language-pr ogramme-on-the-radio-with-the-annoying#15361854

the threads link to the original radio programmes. You'll see that quite a few of us took umbrage at the programmes - hence the creation of the summaries!

Thanks ever so Linglette - I will take a quick look at those links now

Glad to hear it Evie.

Although I am a salt that was posted by another MNer but I swiped it as good.

Whilst not wishing to comment on your particular salt, my particular issue with my profession is that while we are very good at assessing and pinpointing language difficulties, we are not so good at addressing them.

This is why I began to delve into ABA which has made a profound impact on my work as a SALT.

No problem at all eveiebaby. What would we do without moondog? I refused to listen to our SALT who said DS is so severe that it is unlikely he will function independently. Now you look at DS, apart from his inablility to converse he hardly shows any ASD traits.

moondog I found you on MN, but nothing yet relating to questions and understanding or visual calender. I distinctly remember you talking about it previously, but I wish I could remember what you said.

Linglette, thanks for the links, I am going to have a look at it now.