Teaching who questions for speech therapy intervention can be a challenge, especially when there is never enough time in your day to plan effective therapy. I’m here to make your life a bit easier by giving you an easy-to-follow plan when it comes to teaching who questions.
After reading this post, you will have a structured intervention plan for teaching who questions that you can implement tomorrow. Here is an overview of the easy 5-step process that will make you the expert at your school when it comes to writing and addressing who question IEP goals.
- Step 1: Start with pre-intervention data collection for who questions.
- Step 2: Analyze the data from Step 1 to determine where to start your who questions intervention.
- Step 3: Using the information from Step 2, write your student’s speech therapy goals.
- Step 4: Implement speech therapy.
- Step 5: Complete your post-intervention data collection.
Note: This easy 5-step process is included in my Who Questions Flashcards resource. If you would like to skip the rest of this article and jump right into your intervention, click the picture below.
Step 1. Start with pre-intervention data collection for who questions.
Determining IEP goals and planning speech therapy intervention depends upon knowing how the student is currently performing with a specific skill. Using an informal WH question test for data collection in speech therapy is a must.
If you don’t have a data collection tool for WH or WHO questions, don’t worry. Download my FREE WH Questions Baseline Assessment today!
Here is a completed who question example baseline assessment from my free printable speech therapy data sheets resource.
Step 2. Analyze the data from Step 1 to determine where to start your who questions intervention.
Knowing where to start your who questions speech therapy intervention can sometimes be tricky. After completing the baseline assessment from step 1, use this flow chart to help you analyze your data. This will help you determine your therapy plan.
If you would like a free copy of this flow chart, click on the image above and print. It is also included in my Who Questions Flashcards resource.
There are three main columns on the flow chart. Here is what each column means.
- Left Column: Focus on teaching prelinguistic skills and building receptive language.
- Middle Column: Work on teaching who questions.
- Right Column: Work on increasing vocabulary and/or making IEP accommodations for addressing language complexity.
Step 3. Using the information from Step 2, write your student’s speech therapy goals.
First, keep in mind normal who question development.
When planning who question speech therapy goals, it is important to keep in mind normal who question development. Here are the norms that I use from the resource Guide to Communication Milestones (Lanza, J. R. & Flahive, L. K., 2012).
WHO Question Development
- Nonverbally answers simple WHO questions (through the use of eye gaze): 1-2 years of age.
- Answers simple WHO Questions (i.e., Who is this?): 2-3 years of age.
- Answers WHO questions logically: 2-3 years of age.
- Answers more complex WHO questions (i.e., Who puts out fires?): 3-4 years of age.
Then, determine a starting point for speech therapy intervention.
Using the flow chart from step 2, while keeping in mind normal who question development, determine your IEP goals for who questions.
Left Column: Focus on prelinguistic goals and receptive language goals.
Prelinguistic Goal for Joint Attention: The student will demonstrate joint attention in 8/10 trials when the adult points to/shows an object or talks about an immediate event (something that is happening in the child’s present environment).
Click here for more information on joint attention.
Prelinguistic Goal for Attending: The student will attend to a reading and/or play activity for ___ minutes with minimal adult support in 4/5 trials.
Receptive Language Goal for WH Questions (Play Based): The student will respond to WHO, WHAT, and/or WHERE questions during a play activity in 8/10 trials by pointing.
Receptive Language Goal for WH Questions (Skill Based): The student will respond to WHO, WHAT, and/or WHERE questions by pointing or verbalizing when one or two picture choices are presented with 80% accuracy.
Middle Column: Focus on teaching who questions.
Although you can get very detailed with your IEP goals, I recommend keeping things simple. It’s important that other team members understand the student’s goals. Here are two examples of simple who question goals.
Who Questions Speech Therapy Goal: The student will answer WHO questions with 80% accuracy when picture choices are presented.
Who Questions Speech Therapy Goal: The student will answer WHO questions with 80% accuracy. (no picture choices)
If your student is working on generalizing who questions to conversational and reading comprehension tasks, these are some suggestions.
Who Questions Conversational Speech Therapy Goal: The student will answer WHO questions during conversation with 80% accuracy.
Who Questions Reading Comprehension Speech Therapy Goal: The student will answer WHO questions for reading comprehension tasks with 80% accuracy.
Right Column: Increasing vocabulary to support answering who questions might be the best course of treatment. Considering IEP accommodations for addressing language complexity might also be appropriate.
You might find that it is more appropriate to focus on accommodations and modifications to decrease the barriers that might exist when answering questions. Here is a list of possible accommodations and modifications.
- Simplify questions by decreasing the amount of complex language used in the question.
- Supplement your verbal question with a picture scene or picture cue.
- Give the student visual or verbal choices of answers.
Step 4. Implement speech therapy.
Now that you have your student’s IEP goals written, it’s time to get your speech therapy intervention tools ready. You might already have a resource that works well for addressing who question goals. However, if you are looking for a more comprehensive resource for teaching who questions, I have created a set of who questions flashcards that you can purchase. The flashcards featured in this section are from that resource.
First, teach the skill.
Explicit Instruction
If the student is old enough, consider starting with explicit instruction when teaching a student to answer who questions. This is how I start each session. There is research in the area of grammar intervention that suggests combining explicit instruction with implicit instruction is more efficient than just implicit instruction alone. (Calder, S.D., Claessen, M., Ebbels, S. & Leitao, S., 2020)
Directly teach your students that when they hear the word who in a question it refers to a person/people, the job someone does, or a character in a story.
Focused Implicit Instruction
How do you teach children that aren’t ready for explicit instruction? For my students who are unable to learn via explicit instruction, usually because they are too young, I use focused implicit instruction (which is a term I coined). Focused implicit instruction involves focusing the child’s attention on several trials of a target skill, with minimal environmental distractions.
For example, I might use simple flashcards that require only a point to answer a question. Every flashcard repeats the same target WH question word, as well as the same grammatical structure.
Then, practice the skill.
There isn’t much research that I’ve come across in regards to a hierarchy for how to teach who questions. The following is based on my clinical experience and what I’ve found to be effective with teaching who questions for speech therapy intervention. Although this learning ladder provides a general hierarchy, you should always take into consideration the student’s language profile when planning intervention.
To make this sequence easy to follow in your intervention, I’ve created a scope & sequence for therapy intervention in my Who Questions Flashcards Resource. It is differentiated for PreK students and School Age students.
If the student is old enough, I use flashcards between turns of an open-ended game. The game motivates students to participate in a flashcard activity that would otherwise be a nonpreferred task.
If the student is not old enough to participate in games, I might use flashcards during play activities.
1. Basic Who Questions
First address questions in which the answer focuses on pointing to or labeling a person. (These WH question examples are from sets 1 and 2 of my who questions flashcards resource.) If your student can already answer basic who questions, move on to intermediate who questions.
Example: Who is this? Who is that? Who is sleeping?
Prerequisite Skill: The student must be able to verbally identify a subject (person). The student must also be able to understand verbs for questions such as, Who is eating?
When asking basic who questions, make sure the referent/answer is visible. This usually includes the adult/therapist pointing to a person and asking Who’s that? or Who’s playing? This task is easily practiced in daycare, preschool, and 4K/5K settings and can be incorporated into daily routines by adults that work with the student.
If referents aren’t available during therapy sessions, make flashcards specific to your student with pictures of familiar people/characters.
This task can also be easily addressed by reading a simple book and asking who questions. For example, if reading a farm book, the adult might ask Who says moo? Who is in the barn? Yes, the answers refer to animals but remember language is dynamic. This allows a student to be more flexible with their understanding of how to answer who questions.
2. Intermediate Who Questions
Next, address conversational who questions that contain more complex grammar and require increased processing. (These WH question examples are from sets 3 and 4 of my who questions flashcards resource.)
Example: Who made you breakfast?
Prerequisite Skills: The student must be able to understand several parts of speech, based on the complexity of the question. The student must also be able to use episodic memory to answer many of these types of questions.
This type of who question involves an increase in language processing because often the question contains more complex language and the answer requires the student to remember an event from the past or use memory to predict an outcome for the future. These questions include, Who will pick you up today? Who helped you get dressed this morning? Who sat next to you at lunch today?
I start with flashcards that have picture choices.
Then, I move on to flashcards without picture choices.
3. Advanced Who Questions
Finally, I work on answering advanced who questions. (These WH question examples are from sets 5-7 of my who questions flashcards resource.)
Example: Who treats sick animals?
Prerequisite skills: The student must understand several parts of speech, based on the complexity of the question. In addition, the student has to have sufficient background knowledge and vocabulary, which takes both semantic memory and episodic memory. (Semantic memory is the ability to recall words, concepts, or numbers.)
If the student doesn’t have the sufficient vocabulary needed for answering these types of who questions, I start by building word knowledge.
Then, I move on to flashcards with picture choices.
Finally, I use flashcards without picture choices.
This type of who question will likely be the most difficult for students to answer due to the increased cognitive load. Although the data is mixed on providing visual supports to assist some students with answering questions, I have found that providing visuals teaches my students not only how to answer these questions, but also provides an opportunity to support vocabulary development.
Step 5. Complete your post-intervention data collection.
When your session data suggests that the student has learned how to answer who questions, update the original baseline assessment. This provides you with data to report at the IEP meeting and/or on the progress report. If the student has met their goal, move on to the next skill.
What is the ultimate goal for working on who questions?
It is important to note that during this process of teaching who questions for speech therapy, it’s essential to incorporate who questions into conversational and read-aloud activities. This is the overarching goal of working on questions- to be able to participate in a conversation and answer questions for academic tasks.
If you are unsure of what your student’s accuracy is with answering WH and WHO questions, get a free baseline tool . This will help you determine where you should start with intervention.
Wondering where you can get all the WH question resources and examples featured in this post? Get my who question flashcards and this 5-step process will simplify your therapy planning and increase your effectiveness as a clinician.
Other Related Posts:
4 Things To Consider Before Writing Speech Therapy WH Question Goals
5 Steps for Effectively Teaching What Questions in Speech Therapy
5 Simple Steps for Teaching Where Questions for Speech Therapy
Resources:
Calder, S.D., Claessen, M., Ebbels, S., & Leitão, S. (2020). Explicit grammar intervention in young school-aged children with developmental language disorder: An efficacy study using single-case experimental design. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_LSHSS-19-00060
Calder, S. D., Claessen, M., Ebbels, S., & Leitão, S. (2020). The efficacy of an explicit intervention approach to improve past tense marking for early school-age children with developmental language disorder. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-20-00132
Ebbels, S., & Owen Van Horne, A. (2020). Grammatical concepts of English: Suggested order of intervention. The Informed SLP. https://www.theinformedslp.com/review/the-grammar-guide-you-never-knew-you-always-wanted
Gaertner et al., (2008) Focused Attention in Toddlers: Measurement, Stability, and Relations to Negative Emotion and Parenting. Journal of Infant Child Development. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2607062/pdf/nihms-81608.pdf
Lanza, J. R. & Flahive, L. K. (2012) Guide to Communication Milestones. LinguiSystems. (https://www.carolinatherapeutics.com/wp-content/uploads/milestones-guide.pdf)
