Preschool activites for asking questions?

Question

I am a teacher for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I have a student in preschool/kindergarten who falls on the autism spectrum and we are working on asking/answering questions. Any suggestions? The student can answer questions that are obvious "What color is this balloon?" but has problems answering questions that are more abstract -- "What do you think made the girl sad?" or "Why did you hit your sister?" etc. Any ideas of activites to practice this skill? Thank you!

Answer 1

Keep the question about things he is interested in , if he loves trains, ask him about trains. Abstract questions are hard for lots of children, practice by reading a book, then asking, what do you think will happen next?- even if he doesn't answer, model answering by turning the page and telling him what happened.

Answer 2

Social stories are great!  Also, you could use picture flash cards to start questions.  They have some great ones through teaching stores that show people interacting and their emotions.  If you can't find picture cards, how about making flash cards or a book out of magazine pictures.  Collect a few pictures showing interactions and emotion and put them together.  They could be used in other ways with your other children something like a storytelling prompt.  Hope it helps!

Answer 3

Definitely social stories.  You can find some cool free ones on the web.  Many times autistic people know they need to respond to a question but don't know how to.  The result is often an inappropriate response or no response at all.  It may seem like the child is not all there but be assured the child hears you.  You just need to teach the child how to appropriately respond to questions.  It takes great patience but should catch on after some time.   You'll be amazed at just much abstract thought the child has.  They just need help getting their thoughts out in an understandable way.

Answer 4

you have to show the student the practical way such as the girl is happy because she receive a gift, the girl is sad because her baslloon flew away.

Answer 5

You hit the nail on the head with the autism issue. My son has a horrible time think abstractly as well. We have to keep working on it. One thing we do is read a story and ask him how do you think Thomas(the train) feels? Then we answer it so he gets an idea. Social Stories can help immensely too.