Teaching Kids with Autism to Reply to Questions with Yes and No
Many kids with autism need to be taught to answer yes and no, and very few professionals know how to teach this skill. So today, it’s all about yes and no.
Hi, I’m doctor Mary Barbera. Autism mom, board certified behavior analyst, and best-selling author. When my son, Lucas, was two years old, before he was diagnosed with autism, he went to weekly speech therapy, and at the time, I knew nothing about how to try to help him speak more. He always had a few words, but I never really knew how to get more out of him. So we’d go to speech therapy, and I was observing each time, and I would go in there, and the speech therapist would start out with things like bubbles, and having him request more bubbles, and say bubbles.
So everything was fine during that part of speech therapy. In fact, she was doing a little pairing, which I didn’t know what that was. But then he was two, and she would get out a stack of cards, and half of them would be apples, and half of them would be other things, like a bed, and a ball, and whatever, and she would go through the cards, and she’d say, “Is this an apple?” And she’d want him to say yes or no. He had no idea. He was making constant errors. I didn’t know that what she was actually doing was yes no tacts, which he was two, and I think he acquired yes no tacts when he was 12.
So she was working on things that were way too hard, and I didn’t know anything about it, so the ability to say yes and no, to respond yes and no, to any question, is a very complex skill involving different operants. So when I say an operant, I mean a mand, a tact, an intraverbal, those are verbal operants. They were coined by B.F. Skinner in his classic book in 1957, called Verbal Behavior. So when we look at the skill of yes no, we need to look at it in terms of the operants. It’s been my experience that a child needs to master yes no mands, answering yes and no to a question such as, “Do you want a cookie?” With the cookie in sight, they need to learn to mand yes no appropriately before you should attempt to introduce yes no tacts such as “Is this an apple?” Or “Is this a bed?” which the speech therapist was doing when Lucas was two. And you should really need to wait to even think about teaching yes no intraverbals, which intraverbals are no pictures present, so those are questions such as, “Does a cow say ‘quack?'” Or “Does a boy wear a dress?”
So we have yes no mands, for items a child may want, like a cookie. We have yes no tacts for “Is this a pen? Is this a bed?” That’s a lot more difficult than yes no mands, and then yes no intraverbals are even trickier because that’s a higher skill. So assessing yes and no within each operant is a great place to start, and I’ve done a lot of work with teaching yes and no mands to Lucas, as well as many other children. Teaching a child to say no, or to respond with a head shake no, can be taught early, to replace problem behaviors such as crying, or pushing away items the child doesn’t want, but teaching a child to say yes should not be done until important prerequisites are in place. I recommend not teaching yes mands until the child is spontaneously manding or requesting dozens of items, both in sight and out of sight, and also the child should be manding for several actions, such as come, or push, or those sorts of actions.
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I’ve seen many children who have defective mands because someone taught them too early to answer yes. So it’s very common, even for adults with severe autism, to answer yes when you ask them any question that they don’t know what the answer is. So I had a client once who was in his early 20s, and someone at his day program said, “Have you ever been on a boat?” And he said, “Yes,” and I looked at her, I said, “Do you know if he ever has been on a boat?” She’s like, “I have no idea,” and this young man would say yes to pretty much anything.
The main issue is that when children or adults say yes when someone offers them something, do you want candy, or do you want a tickle, and they’re just saying yes, they don’t ever mand for the actual item spontaneously, by using the item name, such as candy or tickle. That yes can become a generalized mand, similar to the way manding for more gets you into trouble, because a child may be saying more, having problem behaviors, or they may be saying yes, and having problem behaviors, or you don’t know what they need. So they’re saying yes, and you’re looking at them like, “What do you want?” And they’re not spontaneously manding with the item name.
That’s the main problem with teaching yes too early. It really affects spontaneous manding, which is so important to a child’s development. Now yes no tacting, answering “Is this an apple?” Or “Is this a pen?” Or even, “Is this blue?” Or “Am I standing?” Is a much a harder skill than yes no mands, and should not be introduced until a child can indicate yes or no, and mand for items out of sight. For yes no intraverbals, it’s important that the instructor know the answer to the question they’re asking. For example, that scenario I gave you where, “Have you ever been on a boat?” If you don’t know the answer to the question, it’s not a good question for a child who’s weak with yes no without any visuals.
So there are many children and adults with autism who over answer yes because they don’t understand complex language. It’s not their fault. For this reason, I usually don’t focus on teaching any intraverbal yes no responses, but a lot of times I do have to directly teach yes no mands and yes no tacts. And let the intraverbal yes no without any visuals develop more gradually and only teach basic functional and important yes no intraverbals.
So I know this was kind of complex and usually my vlogs are a little bit more basic, but it is really important, when you think about yes no, to think about is it a yes no mand with the item in sight, such as “Do you want this cookie?” or is it a yes no mand for an item out of sight, like “Do you want ketchup on your hamburger?” Yes no tacts are much harder than yes no mands, and that’s “Is this a car? Is this a bed? Is this an apple?” And yes no intraverbals should be really put on the back burner, and that’s asking a child questions that you don’t know the answer to, the questions are probably way too complex, and it’s just not going to be functional to teach those complex skills at least if you’re working with an intermediate learner.
I go over all these techniques, and many more like this, in my online courses, and to get started learning more about my approach, you can sign up for my new three step guide and join me on my mission at marybarbera.com/join. And I’ll see you next week.
Many kids with autism need to be taught to answer yes and no, and very few professionals know how to teach this skill. So today, it’s all about yes and no. Hi, I’m Dr. Mary Barbera—autism mom, board-certified behavior analyst, and best-selling author. When my son, Lucas, was two years old—before he was diagnosed with autism—he went to weekly speech therapy. At the time, I knew nothing about how to help him speak more. He always had a few words, but I didn’t know how to get more out of him. During therapy, the sessions would usually start with bubbles. The therapist would have him request more bubbles and say “bubbles.” That part was fine, and in fact, she was doing some pairing—though I didn’t know what that was back then. But then she would pull out a stack of cards: half with apples and half with other items like a bed or a ball. She’d ask, “Is this an apple?” and expect him to say yes or no. He had no idea, and he was making constant errors. What I didn’t realize at the time was that she was working on yes-no tacts, which were way too advanced. Lucas didn’t master yes-no tacts until he was about 12. So she was essentially asking him to do something that was far beyond his skill level. The ability to say yes or no in response to a question is a complex skill because it involves different verbal operants. These operants—mands, tacts, intraverbals—were outlined by B.F. Skinner in his 1957 book Verbal Behavior. From my experience, children should first learn yes-no mands—answering questions like “Do you want a cookie?” when the cookie is in sight. Once they can do this, then we can move to yes-no tacts, such as “Is this an apple?” Only after that should we even consider teaching yes-no intraverbals, which involve no visuals—questions like “Does a cow say quack?” or “Does a boy wear a dress?” Teaching a child to say no—or to shake their head no—can be introduced early to replace problem behaviors like crying or pushing away unwanted items. But teaching yes should wait until certain prerequisites are in place. I recommend not teaching yes mands until a child is spontaneously requesting dozens of items (both in sight and out of sight) and several actions, like “push” or “come.” I’ve seen many children develop defective yes mands because they were taught too early. It’s common—even in adults with severe autism—for yes to become the default response. I once had a 20-year-old client who said yes to nearly everything. Someone asked him, “Have you ever been on a boat?” and he said yes. But no one actually knew if that was true. The problem with teaching yes too early is that it can replace functional requesting. If a child just says “yes” to everything, they may stop spontaneously manding for specific items, like “candy” or “tickle.” This is similar to the problem with overusing the word “more”—you end up with a child who says more (or yes), but you still don’t know what they actually want. Yes-no tacts—answering “Is this a pen?” or “Is this a bed?”—are even harder than yes-no mands. These shouldn’t be introduced until the child can already request items out of sight. And when it comes to yes-no intraverbals, it’s especially important that the instructor already knows the answer to the question. Asking a child with weak language skills, “Have you ever been on a boat?” isn’t helpful—it’s too complex and unreliable. For these reasons, I usually avoid focusing on intraverbal yes-no responses altogether. Instead, I teach yes-no mands and tacts directly and let the intraverbal skills develop gradually. When I do teach intraverbal yes-no, I keep it basic, functional, and relevant. So, when you think about yes and no, always consider which operant it belongs to. Is it a yes-no mand with the item in sight (“Do you want this cookie?”)? Is it a yes-no mand for an item out of sight (“Do you want ketchup on your hamburger?”)? Or is it a yes-no tact (“Is this a car?” “Is this an apple?”)? Intraverbal yes-no—questions without visuals—should really be saved for later, once a child has stronger language skills. I cover all of these techniques and more in my online courses. To start learning about my approach, you can download my free three-step guide at MaryBarbera.com/join. I’ll see you next week.
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About the Author
Dr. Mary Barbera, RN, BCBA-D is a best-selling author, award-winning speaker, and Board Certified Behavior Analyst with a Ph.D. in leadership. As both an autism mom and professional, Mary brings over 25 years of experience helping thousands of parents and professionals around the world. She is the creator of the Turn Autism Around® approach and author of The Verbal Behavior Approach and Turn Autism Around: An Action Guide for Parents of Young Children with Early Signs of Autism. Through her books, online courses, and podcast, Mary empowers families to increase talking, reduce tantrums, and improve life skills in young children with autism or signs of autism.