Wh- questions are extremely important to work on for receptive language as they allow the client to work towards: 

• Understanding the question word

• Know the grammar of the question

• Understanding the vocabulary word (not just the question word)

• Make sense of the information and social context

• Formulate a response

• Put the words together 

• Give a response 

This skill allows individuals to participate in conversation with family and friends, answering questions in an academic setting, demonstrating knowledge on tests, following directions, and overall staying safe. 

Therapy Goal 

By the end of next year, when presented with a short story, the student will be able to correctly answer who, what, and where questions in 8 out of 10 trials measured over three observable consecutive sessions 

• Visual Cues

  • When asking questions, show photographs, illustrations, or actual objects that correlate to the question. Many children require visual support to full process information. Visual images help transform abstract concepts into concrete concepts. A visual representation provides a constant reminder of the type of question asked.

• Give Choices

  • If your child is displaying difficulties answering open ended wh-questions, start off with multiple choices. This strategy will not only increase understanding, but will increase a child’s confidence, as he/she is more likely to answer accurately.

    • For example, if you are asking a child, “where does a cow live?”, give multiple choices (“ocean” or “farm”). Since both options are places, it reinforces the idea that the child must answer “where” questions with the name of a place.

• Help with “why” questions

  • Answering “why” questions are more difficult, as these answers are not concrete and require inferential thinking. The good news is that we teach how to answer these questions in the same way that we teach how to answer other wh- questions: through visual cues, repetition, and multiple exemples.

Exceptional Speech Therapy. 

Evidence Based Practice

Children who struggle to answer Wh-questions may benefit from a variety of instructional techniques, including strategies that:

1. increase the visual representation of complex syntactic movement (e.g., assign colors and shapes to parts of speech, phrases, or clauses);

2. increase intrinsic motivation (e.g., immediately give the child an object associated with the question he/she answered);

3. increase naturalness (e.g., use a typically developing peer to answer the clinician’s questions when the child is unable to do so); and

4. increase the level of modeling, feedback, and support (e.g., use an “I do, we do, you do” structure to therapy sessions) for incorrect answers to questions. (Diehm & Abou-Dahech., 2019)

Speech Pathology.com

Data will be collected through a +/- system. A + is awarded when the question is answered correctly and - when the answer does not fit the question. 

References: 

Emily Diehm, T. A.-D. (2019, November 1). Pearson's EBP briefs: Wh-question intervention for children with language disorders. SpeechPathology.com. Retrieved November 30, 2022, from https://www.speechpathology.com/articles/wh-question-intervention-for-children-20273

Jturman. (2021, December 30). Wh-Questions. Exceptional Speech Therapy. Retrieved November 30, 2022, from https://exceptionalspeechtherapy.com/wh questions/#:~:text=How%20to%20Help%20as%20a,%2C%20and%20%E2%80%9Cwhere% E2%80%9D%20questions.