Teaching Kids with Autism to Reply to Questions with Yes and No | Autism and Complex Language

Dr. Mary Barbera talks about teaching kids with autism to reply to questions with yes and no, and autism and complex language.

Basic language alone is already hard enough, but complex language for children with autism is on a whole other level. One of the biggest challenges with teaching children and adults with autism to answer “Yes” and “No” to questions is that sometimes they can't tell the difference. There are a number of strategies for teaching yes and no in speech therapy, and in today's video, I'm going to review such strategies. Of course though, as with every problem behavior, action plan, or learning phase for your child or client, you need to plan, asses, and take data. To start turning autism around for your child or client and learning how to complete each of these steps, download my new free 3-step guide.

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Dr. Mary Barbera "fell" into the autism world in 1999 when her first-born son, Lucas, was diagnosed with autism one day before his third birthday. Over the past 2 decades, Mary has gone from knowing almost nothing about autism to becoming a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst, writing a best-selling book, The Verbal Behavior Approach (which is now translated in over 10 languages), and earning a PhD with a thorough understanding of some of the best autism ABA strategies. In 2015, Mary started her first autism online course which has already been purchased from parents and professionals from over 45 countries and now sells 3 online courses. With over 2 decades in the autism world, both as a parent and professional, Mary is in a unique position to help YOU, especially if you live or work with a child with autism who also has language delays or disorders. Her mission is to turn things around for 2 million children with autism (or signs of autism) by 2020 through online training and advocacy!

[fairytaleimpressions]

This is how my daughter and I started teaching my son yes and no. We grabbed some of his favorite toys and I asked his sister, do you want this (fill in the blank)? She'd say yes and grab it while nodding. Or she'd say "no" and push the object away while shaking her head. Thanks to this method, he now understands "no", but we are still learning yes.

[interestinglyenough]

OMG … I’m so glad I found this video. I have a spouse with ASD (recently suspected and late life diagnosis) and I’ve lost my sh*t a few times at their inability to answer yes or no questions in certain situations.

[olenashaforost]

Dear Maria. My daughter is now almost 11, but when she turned just 4 being completely non-verbal she started to attend speech and language therapy. The therapist could not get any response from my daughter over several sessions. Then we went on holidays to Spain and a day before our trip I received your book "verbal behaviour", dropped it in my suitcase. On holidays I was reading and implementing your strategies. My daughter started to respond to simple questions, she was sitting on the swing, I sang her nursery rhymes and she filled gaps (because if she would not do I would not push the swing). When we came to our SLT session, my daughter was responding to all activities the therapist offered. The SLT nearly fall of her chair in surprise. I told her about your wonderful book... 7 years passed. I tried to teach my daughter language by myself using various sources. The provision here in the UK is not great. They are turning off not only ABA but even reasonable SLT approaches, reduced financing of education for children with special needs. I am wondering if you have more books where you explain how to teach all those language concepts so systematically like you explained with this example "yes" and "no". The " verbal behaviour " book was excellent for a start and brought us the biggest progress. But later I used other sources and I think I made my mistakes by taking similar approach like the one with apple ( I used matching as yes, non matching as no) and we struggled for years untill my daughter got it. Just one example. Other concepts are all going too slow. I never saw anything so systematic and natural like approach explained by you. I believe my daughter could progress faster if I used more of your ideas. Really need help as I am stacking when teaching more complex concepts and expanding language.

[helkittyegg]

This is so important! We should not be teaching yes before the child can make tons of spontaneous mands.

[alpoutoa]

When I ask my son how his day was and his answer is always "Yes". This video has made me think of trying to find out about his day from him another way...

[preethabalasubramanian]

By far, the best explanation I have seen/heard. I am so happy I came across this.

[stevenBA_ABA]

Thank you so much! This video is very helpful for me as a therapist!

[drsharidrosen]

prior to Y/N do you consider developing functional communication and developing a range of gestures. I am not understanding why Y/N is important. If you ask a child if he wants a cookie (preferred) it seems to me that teaching a child to reach or point while referencing the attention of an adult is far more important and functional. Reaching + referencing obviously is a yes. Teaching a child to push away objects he/she does not want would indicate "no". Then the spoken language comes in: nod head/shaking head and saying "don't want", "i want__", again is functional. PhD, SLP here

[wolfbenson]

I always start with tacting. Not manding. Most kids on the spectrum love to name, ID, line up, repeat letters, number, shapes, names of objects. You don't have to use manding alone to capture MOs. What is it? Has always brought me quicker results than, "what do you want?" Then, you do transfer from tact to mand.
Now that you've got a lot of tacts for things that the child likes, you introduce, "Do you want this?" You model the response, he repeats and then you immediately give it to him. Once "Yes" is firmly established, keep doing it and on every 3rd or 4th trial, intro something he really doesn't want: empty bag, piece of paper, something he has shown you that he's not interested in and repeat the Sd. Model the response: "No." I have used this w/many children and it usually works fine. Then I branch from, "Do you want this?" I show him something that's in his verbal repertoire and say, it this a ball?" He'll say, "Yes." Again. Make it fun. "This is a ball? Really?" Four or five times and then, show him a car and repeat the Sd, model the response, "No."

[polloloci]

Thank you- I was just asking yes/no questions to my 5yr old son- he couldn’t answer. This helps me understand what I was doing wrong. Thanks

[Pomimylove]

I can ask my child what the color of an object is or a math problem(and i do mean double digit math problems and he will answer.) I could also ask the question "What are you doing?" or certain other questions and he repeats what we ask.

[angelicscons]

do u have any videos for the blind toddlers who is non verbal

[ausomecastiel]

My son learned the yes no tact first. It was very easy for him. But yes no mands is very difficult to teach because he would only echo my question if I ask what he prefers.

[xxSprinkleMePinkxx]

We are having a hard time teaching my son the “no” mand. He gets very frustrated and refuses to work anymore on the task. :(
He’s almost 4 and non verbal and has been using pecs for about 6 months. He is also using his sentence strip for “I want when this was first initiated, he got the “no” mand correct about 36% of the time without prompting. But now he is getting it incorrect almost all the time.

[leannestrong]

Hi, the problem with teaching individuals on the Autism spectrum to give yes or no answers is that many of us (but of course, not all) are less inclined to lie than many (but of course, not all) neurotypicals are. We might be less inclined to say "no, " when we are unaware that the answer is "yes." We are less inclined to say, "yes, " when we are unaware that the answer is "no."

[Peachpie]

I need to teach Yes/No to an adult client. Would you please link the study you're referring to? Or a good study to look into? THANK YOU

[rubydutton-roberts]

Hi there, great video. My Son is 2 year 9 months. At this point I don't think he has Autism although there are some mild indicators. At this point he asks for items or reaches for them but if I ask for example; "do you want an orange" if he wants the orange he will just reply with "orange" and if he doesn't want it then he will just say nothing. Do I just continue to ask the question and prompt with yes or no? I would really appreciate the advice. Thank you!

[jayceonjackson]

So when is a good age to start teaching them Yes or no my baby is 19 months is showing all the signs but has not been diagnosed yet .

[demircifd]

How do we correct defective yes please?

[kaitlynmay]

We started with no and now it’s the only response she will give. She knows all her colors but if I hold up a crayon and ask “is this red?” when it is, she still says no. If purposely say the wrong color she says “no that’s ___”. We are about to start speech therapy