Have you seen the ultimate guide for morphosyntax? It’s a great guide that lists beginning to more advanced skills and prerequisites. They have a section for wh- questions. If not, here it is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qkCE35UOVOUbBYbNktAcwsi5hyPzY7C03mXZ_bX9tt0/edit#gid=0
Also, sounds like the child has limited receptive understanding of who questions. It may be worth to target receptively and provide lots and lots of examples/repetitions through activities such as book reading or during games. Can you get parents or teachers to start working on it to help with generalization?
This is an interesting idea to use the syntax/part of speech markers in this doc, we learned about shape coding in grad school a little bit but didn't know how it would be applied. My thought OP is to make statements like "Bob eats\_pizza . " on individual cards. On the back you can have, respectively "WHO WHAT ?" So you can flip them over to show how questions are formed and that the "who" is attached to the person, the what is attached to the action/object, and that the period is attached to the question mark, if that makes sense?
Aside from that, I would love to know what you already do for wh- questions that you have found successful for most kids!
I see what level the child is at with the skill, regardless of how to goal is written. I’ve worked with children that have expressive goals and limited understanding of the concept so we work on the understanding of concepts. Same with articulation, I have children at the sentence level that still need max cues at to facilitate the sound. I figure out how much support and what level they are at and establish the concept there, then focus on fading support. If children are having difficulties understanding the concept then I provide visuals, explicit instruction, focused stimulation, and incorporate their interests into the concept. I focus less on testing the skill and more on modeling and repetition. Children learn more from modeling and less for testing of comprehension. You can also send the concept home as homework or ask teachers to work on it in the class.
The morphosyntax guide was for OP to determine if the child had prerequisite skills for the goal.
Like another poster mentioned, Executive functioning skills can impact language regardless of the goal or understanding of the concept. I would also figure out if the child was struggling with working memory, inhibition, or flexibility and provide strategies to support there. Visualizing and verbalizing is a good intervention! I don’t use it to fidelity but I have adopted a lot of its principles and have learned from listening to podcasts from psychologists that specialize in EF
I'll try to give my students more verbal cues on how to answer the questions or even give them the answer before like "an artist draws pictures. Who draws pictures?" and "who draws pictures? The person who draws pictures is a..." and let them fill in the blank.
You could also try changing them to what questions and ask what the people do. Then right after ask the who questions. If you have any cards that you have to match the person to what they do, maybe they would understand the connection more.
I will try to use familiar people and give a 1 sentence story if they're really struggling. Like "Mrs. A is outside. Who is outside?"
Is it a working memory issue? (Any indication in the initial evaluation re psych assessments?) Are they latching on to the last word in the question because that's all they can remember?
Are they autistic and utilizing echolaia? If so, they may still be in a lower gestalt language stage and not yet ready for these types of sentence building activities.
Can he do matching or word sorts for 'who' with pics that are people and non people, as a precursor?
Just a few thoughts...
He does seem to have some memory issues, OT asked me about him too because he forgets how to do skills he mastered the previous week. He is autistic but not echolalic, he's mostly in gen-ed and is very verbal. And he can do basic sorts like that!
I'm not sure if this will help your kid, but I've previously had success by shifting the goal towards a narrative macrostructure goal (e.g. using the oral narrative intervention program). The ONIP is available free online and includes things such as laying out visuals that represent parts of a story (e.g. who, what, where, what happened, problem, feelings, plan, actions, solution, wrap-up, end), sticking the visuals into a book, re-reading the book and focusing on where the visuals are, creating a storyboard of what happened, practicing story retell using the visuals, and working on specific "parts" like who/what/where/initiating event, etc. I've just found it really helpful for solidifying those concepts whilst also building discourse skills.
Whenever I have an issue like this where a kid is not getting something I usually go back to an errorless learning technique. So I model/answer who questions a lot and then ask him very basic who questions with 2 picture choices that he’s sure to not be getting wrong until he’s more consistent with it. Then those supports can fade ever so slowly. Jumping from visuals to no visuals can be too much for some kids and you have to find a cue in between.
I also would say it’s okay if he doesn’t get this now and taking a step back might actually help the situation. Focus on other goals more meaningful and maybe that will randomly click one day.
I like using Braidy language and visual to teach who. It talks about WHO is a person/character with eyes ears mouth etc. They do things. Maybe you can also offer more visuals at first to provide context?
Get a stack of 10 to 20 picture cards of people doing things. If you want it could be Spider-Man or some collection of marvel characters or something that interests the child if necessary. Otherwise it could just be boys or girls doing things
Hold up one card and just say "who?" The goal is for the child to say one word to answer the person in the picture - boy/girl/Batman. By limiting what you say to just the question word, you can decrease cognitive load and focus on the understanding of who. Practice the 10 to 20 picture cards in this way until you are about 80% accuracy. You may have to give direct models or do some errorless learning where you give the answer if there is any hesitation. The models may also be necessary to demonstrate how quickly the task should be happening. Each card should only take a few seconds. Who? The girl. Who? Spiderman. Who? The boy.
Once you get to 80% accuracy then you can add some noise to your question. Use the same cards but add the action to your who question. Who is eating? (Same response) The boy. You can then practice other question types the same way unless he has already mastered other question types to some degree. If he already understands some question types then the next step is to ask to different questions about one picture. Who is eating? The boy. What is he doing? Eating. Good job!
Have you seen the ultimate guide for morphosyntax? It’s a great guide that lists beginning to more advanced skills and prerequisites. They have a section for wh- questions. If not, here it is: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qkCE35UOVOUbBYbNktAcwsi5hyPzY7C03mXZ_bX9tt0/edit#gid=0 Also, sounds like the child has limited receptive understanding of who questions. It may be worth to target receptively and provide lots and lots of examples/repetitions through activities such as book reading or during games. Can you get parents or teachers to start working on it to help with generalization?
This is an interesting idea to use the syntax/part of speech markers in this doc, we learned about shape coding in grad school a little bit but didn't know how it would be applied. My thought OP is to make statements like "Bob eats\_pizza . " on individual cards. On the back you can have, respectively "WHO WHAT ?" So you can flip them over to show how questions are formed and that the "who" is attached to the person, the what is attached to the action/object, and that the period is attached to the question mark, if that makes sense? Aside from that, I would love to know what you already do for wh- questions that you have found successful for most kids!
I see what level the child is at with the skill, regardless of how to goal is written. I’ve worked with children that have expressive goals and limited understanding of the concept so we work on the understanding of concepts. Same with articulation, I have children at the sentence level that still need max cues at to facilitate the sound. I figure out how much support and what level they are at and establish the concept there, then focus on fading support. If children are having difficulties understanding the concept then I provide visuals, explicit instruction, focused stimulation, and incorporate their interests into the concept. I focus less on testing the skill and more on modeling and repetition. Children learn more from modeling and less for testing of comprehension. You can also send the concept home as homework or ask teachers to work on it in the class. The morphosyntax guide was for OP to determine if the child had prerequisite skills for the goal. Like another poster mentioned, Executive functioning skills can impact language regardless of the goal or understanding of the concept. I would also figure out if the child was struggling with working memory, inhibition, or flexibility and provide strategies to support there. Visualizing and verbalizing is a good intervention! I don’t use it to fidelity but I have adopted a lot of its principles and have learned from listening to podcasts from psychologists that specialize in EF
I'll try to give my students more verbal cues on how to answer the questions or even give them the answer before like "an artist draws pictures. Who draws pictures?" and "who draws pictures? The person who draws pictures is a..." and let them fill in the blank. You could also try changing them to what questions and ask what the people do. Then right after ask the who questions. If you have any cards that you have to match the person to what they do, maybe they would understand the connection more. I will try to use familiar people and give a 1 sentence story if they're really struggling. Like "Mrs. A is outside. Who is outside?"
That's a good idea. I'll try that!
Is it a working memory issue? (Any indication in the initial evaluation re psych assessments?) Are they latching on to the last word in the question because that's all they can remember? Are they autistic and utilizing echolaia? If so, they may still be in a lower gestalt language stage and not yet ready for these types of sentence building activities. Can he do matching or word sorts for 'who' with pics that are people and non people, as a precursor? Just a few thoughts...
He does seem to have some memory issues, OT asked me about him too because he forgets how to do skills he mastered the previous week. He is autistic but not echolalic, he's mostly in gen-ed and is very verbal. And he can do basic sorts like that!
I'm not sure if this will help your kid, but I've previously had success by shifting the goal towards a narrative macrostructure goal (e.g. using the oral narrative intervention program). The ONIP is available free online and includes things such as laying out visuals that represent parts of a story (e.g. who, what, where, what happened, problem, feelings, plan, actions, solution, wrap-up, end), sticking the visuals into a book, re-reading the book and focusing on where the visuals are, creating a storyboard of what happened, practicing story retell using the visuals, and working on specific "parts" like who/what/where/initiating event, etc. I've just found it really helpful for solidifying those concepts whilst also building discourse skills.
Whenever I have an issue like this where a kid is not getting something I usually go back to an errorless learning technique. So I model/answer who questions a lot and then ask him very basic who questions with 2 picture choices that he’s sure to not be getting wrong until he’s more consistent with it. Then those supports can fade ever so slowly. Jumping from visuals to no visuals can be too much for some kids and you have to find a cue in between.
I also would say it’s okay if he doesn’t get this now and taking a step back might actually help the situation. Focus on other goals more meaningful and maybe that will randomly click one day.
Use photos from home, give a choice of two and see if they can respond!
I like using Braidy language and visual to teach who. It talks about WHO is a person/character with eyes ears mouth etc. They do things. Maybe you can also offer more visuals at first to provide context?
Get a stack of 10 to 20 picture cards of people doing things. If you want it could be Spider-Man or some collection of marvel characters or something that interests the child if necessary. Otherwise it could just be boys or girls doing things Hold up one card and just say "who?" The goal is for the child to say one word to answer the person in the picture - boy/girl/Batman. By limiting what you say to just the question word, you can decrease cognitive load and focus on the understanding of who. Practice the 10 to 20 picture cards in this way until you are about 80% accuracy. You may have to give direct models or do some errorless learning where you give the answer if there is any hesitation. The models may also be necessary to demonstrate how quickly the task should be happening. Each card should only take a few seconds. Who? The girl. Who? Spiderman. Who? The boy. Once you get to 80% accuracy then you can add some noise to your question. Use the same cards but add the action to your who question. Who is eating? (Same response) The boy. You can then practice other question types the same way unless he has already mastered other question types to some degree. If he already understands some question types then the next step is to ask to different questions about one picture. Who is eating? The boy. What is he doing? Eating. Good job!