Clever cueing strategy for WHY-questions

Photo of a boy in the winter for WHY question prompt How to help survivors understand WHY questions

WH questions (Who, What, Where, etc.) are particularly difficult part of speech therapy, as I've written about before. WHY is a particularly difficult WH question because it's more abstract, cause and effect. The answer is often not a Thing or an Action. You can see how hard this is by trying to fine a picture for Why answers.

Try this at home

Find a picture that leaves a clear impression on you. (In the examples below, it's someone cold, someone dirty.
(See my article on how to find pictures for speech therapy (even actions!)
Talk about the picture.
Introduce the answer in the discussion.
Confirm the patient understands the picture and the discussion.
Ask your Why question about the picture.

Try the Examples below:

Image result for man warm coat snow cold

Is it warm or cold?
Is that snow on the ground?
Why is he wearing a warm coat?

Image result for dirty boy

Is he dirty?
What is all over him?
Does he need a bath?
Do you think is parents want him to take a bath?
Why does he need to take a bath?

Image result for dog chasing ball

What is this furry thing?
What is he chasing?
Why is the dog running?

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Clay Nichols
Co-founder of MoreSpeech and Bungalow Software for unlimited speech therapy at home and in the clinic.

Clay For 3 decades, Clay has helped patients, caregivers and speech pathologists with speech & language software. He is not a speech-language pathologist.