When did your kid learn what/why questions?

[origami]

I saw significant improvement at 5 with my speech delayed son. The SLP worked on it specifically. That and the other W/H questions.

[lauren170]

My DD is 2.5 and can answer why are you crying with "I sad cause daddy tooked the phone away".

In the beginning when she was crying we'd ask her the answer though. Like "are you crying because you're sad?" And she'd say yes. Then, "why are you sad? Because Daddy took the phone away?"

[kdubs923]

Aug 4, 2016 8:00:25 GMT -5 @abbycobb said:

DS1 is 2.5 and probably does better with what than why. Like he can often answer "what are you doing", but sometimes "what did you do at daycare today" gets a blank stare unless I suggest specific activities. I'd give an arm and a leg for him to be able to tell me why the hell he's crying, or why he's licking the window.

My answer is exactly the same. Especially the bolded.

[SKP82]

DD will be 3 in October. She answers what questions (what did you do at school today? What do you want to eat/do? Etc.)

If I ask her why she's crying, she usually says, "because I am" or "because I am sad." If I ask her why she's sad her response will be, "because I am."

She just started answering "what is your favorite xxxx."

[soozy87]

Aug 4, 2016 8:01:49 GMT -5 swizz said:

Aug 4, 2016 7:52:47 GMT -5 lauren170 said:

My DD is 2.5 and can answer why are you crying with "I sad cause daddy tooked the phone away".

In the beginning when she was crying we'd ask her the answer though. Like "are you crying because you're sad?" And she'd say yes. Then, "why are you sad? Because Daddy took the phone away?"

She knows the answers to these types of question are yes/no, so she often just says whichever comes to mind first. Yes/no questions aren't always reliable.

My kid does the same thing. We just discussed it in his speech therapy session last week. The ST said to ask him a question that you know the answer to and then follow it with the answer he will give. "Do you want some milk? Yes" And get him to repeat the answer. And then slowly start to add in the other answer. "Do you want milk, yes or no?" And then eventually you can get to just asking the question. Right now a lot of the time Z just answers a question by repeating the main word of the question or he will just say the second of two answer options no matter if he wants the first or second option. 

[Deleted]

I don't have experience with a speech delay as this ended up being a strength for all 3. They could definitely answer these questions at 2, and the girls probably before that.

But, one thing that may help is forced choice questions. I'm pulling this from our psych and what we use with J for the selective mutism but maybe it would help. Instead of an open ended question or a yes no one you ask one with two choices "are you crying because you hurt yourself or because you can't play with x?" "did you play blocks at school today or disney read a book?" This way it puts the choice in her mind and may be easier for her to verbalize. It may be hard to do when you have no idea what is going on but it may help you narrow in on stuff if you alter the choices.

Eta: Sometimes I do get an "I'm sad" when we ask why they are crying but then asking why are you sad, gets to the real reason. And now I find myself using the forced choice questions more often if we appear to be stuck for whatever reason and seem to be having trouble verbalizing.

[magpie]

DD is still starting to get these types of questions (she'll be 3 in October). Sometimes, she gets it, but sometimes, she needs more prodding than "Why are you crying?" In those cases, we'll say, "What is making you sad?" or "What are you sad for?" For whatever reason, she latched onto the word "for" earlier than why and knew that it has some connection with cause/effect, so we had a lot of luck with that for a while.

[fortnightlily]

DS will be 3 in September. He can and will answer "what" questions pretty well. "Why" questions are a toss-up. Often he ignores them, but for instance if I tell him he can't do something and daddy walks in the room and asks why he's crying you can be sure he will respond in kind

[auntie]

Doesn't Cora carry an ASD dx would would subsume her speech delays?

"WH" questions are generally an ASD glitch for a lot, a lot, a lot of reasons.

Typical kids can answer simple and novel who, what, where by around 2- 2 1/2 for the most part. Being able to report a remote event comes a little later and may not be especially factual. Being able to tell you what the cow says is not a spontaneous response; it is more of a script. Not a put down, this is one of the ways kids learn language. Her repeating the end of a question back is echolalia. Echolalia is another way kids learn language and speech, but kids on spectrum can sometimes get stuck there. She may be using it as a processing assist to buy her time to think about what it is you want from her. Auditory processing is generally weak in kids this age; it continues to improve well into puberty. 

ASD is way more than just a speech delay. It impacts how the brain processes information and communication and generally results in a delay of about 1/2 chronological age in the areas of social and emotional development. Higher functioning kids on spectrum who have no delays in speech or adaptive skills (formerly know as Aspergers) run about 1/3 behind their typical peers even with high IQs and academic success.

WH questions can be hard because:


The listener has to have the Theory of Mind to understand that the asker doesn't have all the information they do.  Even a NT kid might not "get" that mom has different experiences and information than they do until closer to 3. (DS didn't get this until he was about 7- until then he assumed I knew everything he did even when we weren't together; it's part of why he was resistant to answering questions like "what did you do in school today?")

Related to that, the person answering has to understand what is expected. Do they need to provide context to an answer? Or do you have enough background to understand an abridged version. DS did very poorly on tests in middle school because he's leave out material he thought his teachers knew he knew because they'd talked about it in class. 

Sometimes the glitch is more expressive language than speech. They often have trouble getting their ideas from their minds to their mouths.

Central coherence and executive function deficits can impact the organization of answers. Ideas might not come out in a logical order or the emphasis may be on ideas that are less important rather than the core answer. 

Often, these issues are addressed via an IEP once a child gets to school. DS got a lot of support in this area through middle school. He was OK with the basic answering of questions until more critical writing was part of the curriculum. 

I posted an article about girls and ASD at the other site's SN Board. You might want to look at it. 

[kategm]

Why is a very hard concept for young kids. Hell, at 32 I can't always answer Why. Why am I sad? Why am I irrationally angry? Uh... Hormones? I don't know. lol.

I do agree with @winter that it helps to suggest things. Why are you crying? Did you get hurt? (No) Are you tired? (No) Are you hungry? (Yes). Ok! You're crying because you're hungry. Let's get food.

What questions are usually fine at 2.5. It's a crapshoot as to what she'll say, but she knows to respond with something reasonable. I can say "what did you do today at school?" Ate ice cream! I know that wasn't true, but her concept of time and what happens on specific days is shaky. She at least knows the appropriate way to answer that question.

"Why did you pee in your panties instead of the potty?" is always answered with "because I just peed in my panties." I don't see that as developmentally behind personally.

[auntie]

ETA: Because of the emotional immaturity that comes with the ASD dx, identifying and articulating emotion is difficult.

[hopecounts]

DD has ASD and its related language deficits and she just started to get Wh questions over the last year (5-6).
Pragmatics like that and others are her primary remaining language glitch issue.
It's part of the ASD and between ABA and Speech we are making steady progress on it.
But at Cora's age we were still very focused on practical communication (juice or milk, grapes or bananas, play outside or inside)
ABA used VBMApp which included the 'typical' language development so we started where she was and built those blocks.
Slow and steady is better for building a solid language foundation, ASD is a developmental DISorder so slowly working on fixing the gaps is better long term.