Autism Higher Level Language Skills: WH Questions, Inferences & Language for Learning

Teaching higher level language skills is not only difficult for children with autism but can also be very risky if not done properly. Today Dr. Mary Barbera discusses how to teach complex language skills.

The short answer here is to use language for learning, language for thinking, and language for writing and reasoning. Behavior analysts aren’t the best candidates for teaching above these types of skills, especially above the VB-MAPP, simply because of how complex things can get. Usually, kids will need a very specific, and individualized plan that is thought out and reviewed thoroughly by someone who’s been with the child and knows his/her strengths and weaknesses very well. In a recent Q&A session, I was asked about how to teach WH questions and teaching inferences to kids with autism, and it’s just not as simple as getting a list of questions and going through them with your child.

While I do have some great methodologies in my online course to help children start to do some more school-based curriculum, such as the autism book program, it’s difficult for me to even provide a whole ton of resources for older children because of how unique each case is. Autism higher level language skills can be taught though, but it’ll need to be a combined effort with everyone in the child’s life. A speech and language pathologist may also be extremely helpful.

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Dr. Mary Barbera. I fell into the autism world as an autism mom in 1999 when her first-born son, Lucas, was diagnosed with autism. Since then, she became a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst and best-selling author of The Verbal Behavior Approach. Since 2015, she’s created 3 autism online courses based on applied behavior analysis for professionals and "gung-ho" parents. Whether you’re looking for autism parenting strategies, working with development delays in children, or in search of autism help for professionals, I can encourage you to subscribe to the channel and join me on my journey. I’ll be providing weekly autism resources that you don’t want to miss.

[PaulAngileri]

We had the same experience with two different schools. They insisted autism and ADHD weren’t the problem no matter what the doc said, but if those were the problem, they weren’t enough of a problem. We did the whole thing - IEP, additional evals, advocate, and we eventually got close to everything needed. But it still took a lot of our time and delay after delay ends up affecting your child in the mean time.

[rhllc]

Where can I get language for learning? I can't find it. Please help🙏🙏

[sonalupadhyay]

Hi Mary! What is VB MaAPP and how can I get my son assessed. My son is 9 yrs old. And he has some language. He will repeat words after me … so I am trying to teach him conversational language. I would like to know more about this. Please help. Thank you!

[nishtimanmohammed]

are you doing online courses for clients?

[kalkidanmulatu]

My son is 8i want to teach him wh questions but I don't how