The Power of "Yes"

Tonight I was reading Maternal Insticts: Flying by the Seat of My Pants which is one of my favorite blogs by a parent of a child with disabilities and Niksmom's recounting of Nik learning how to sign "yes" and thus answer questions about pain brought back one of my favorite teacher memories.

About 10 years ago I taught a very small intensive special needs class in an urban elementary school. One of my students, a 10 year old boy, came to me with a history of sleeping all day, every day, at school and an estimated "developmental age" of six months. This little boy came from a Spanish speaking home and lived in the housing projects in the city. He had a severe seizure disorder, cerebral palsy, used a wheelchair and was non-verbal. As we settled into a routine in our classroom that September and October I noticed that he often laughed or responded in an obvious way to humor, especially joke questions like, "Is you mother's name Tallulah?" (It wasn't.)

One day we were in that nebulous part of the afternoon when everyone has their coats on and their bags packed, but the buses have not arrived yet. Jokingly I asked my student if he could open his mouth to catch a fly in the room. He did. I stifled my gasp and asked him if he could look up. He did. I repeated my question and he again looked up, laughing now. I went into the hallway and grabbed the first person I could find, the OT, and asked her to watch us. I again requested my student look up. He did and then he laughed. I asked him if there was anything else he could do. He stuck his tongue out just past his lips and grinned at me.

The next day I asked my student if we could pretend looking up meant "yes". He looked up. I proceeded to ask him a variety of questions and he accurately responded to all of them using his new method of raising his eyes to say "yes". Actually he missed one question, "Is your mother's name Tallulah?" (Which he thought was the best joke ever.)

Over the next few weeks we worked to refine this method of answering "yes" and I was hesitant to call his mother (who was not named Tallulah) in for a meeting, in case he wasn't ready to carry his new communication over to his home life. One morning the phone rang and his mother (through a translator) asked why her son was rolling his eyes at her all the time. We knew we had accomplished generalization and filled the mom in on what all the eye raising meant. She was excited, but dubious.

A few weeks after that we received another early morning phone call from my student's mother. She was crying and before long the translator was crying as well. The mom was explaining, "Last night my baby was crying. He was sick and I didn't know what was wrong. I started asking him questions. Do your toes hurt? Do your legs hurt? Does your bottom hurt? Does your stomach hurt? When I asked about his stomach he raised his eyes and stopped crying so hard. I gave him some stomach medicine in his tube and he was better. He stopped crying. This is the first time I could help my son because he could tell me what was wrong. Thank you so much. Thank you for making it so my son can tell me what he needs from me."

Once we heard what the conversation was about we were all crying. A few months later my student added a slight head shake for "no". Then he learned how to use partner assisted scanning in a more formal way and then to use simple scanning software with a switch to make choices and spell out messages. All of this from an afternoon of joking around. His picture still hangs on my wall (taken with his hero Rick Hoyt) to remind me of the power of "yes".

Yes No Keychain

These two photo keychains came from the Dollar Tree Store yesterday. They make a great quick yes/no, more/all done, first/next, etc. communication board. The large clip is also from the dollar store.

Update: I handed these three keychains out at our ESY program today and had to commission a friend to swing by the Dollar Tree again and pick up more. The idea seems popular.

One little six year old girl, who communicates via eyegaze (and is awaiting the new Dynavox Vmax with Eyemax accessory) took to it right away, in fact she used the pink keychain to tell me she wanted the blue one. It was pretty great.

Ask me a yes/no question.

Many of my students have IEP objectives to correctly answer yes/no questions.

One of the many ways I work on this is the yes/no round robin. This is a great "fill in the gap" activity when one lesson ends before it is time to start another. It is also a great activity for this time of year when it is way too hot to actually expect anyone to move! We often discuss that yes.no questions usually start with some version of "can", "do", or "have" as in "could he..., "do they...", "have you" before we begin. Sometimes we compare yes/no to W5/H questions. Yes/no questions is my classrooms favorite fast and easy game after the Super Duper game All About Me, All About You.

We work the yes/no round robin by simply going around the group and having each student answer one yes/no question. Sometimes we keep score, but usually we don't. Asking one question per student from a list makes it very easy to differentiate instruction as the leader can ask each student a question suitable for his or her ability level. A student functioning on a more concrete level might answer a question like, "Is your teacher named Bob?" and another student might be asked, "Is 911 the correct number to call if your brother's feet smell?" while a third might be asked, "Is the automotive section the right part of the store to look for molasses?".

If your grouping is more homogeneous you can write your yes/no questions on cards or Popsicle sticks and have your students draw a question and answer it. Integrating AAC is also simple for this activity. My students answer the yes/no questions using everything from their voices to looking up or down for yes/no, to sign language, to dual sided rocking switches to dynamic display devices.

When more time allows I have also created a board game version of "Ask Me a Yes/No Question!" which I have posted on Yudu for all to download, if you wish, just download and print, line up the edges of the four pages and glue to some poster board, laminate, fine a die and some pawns and play.

Free Resources for Yes/No Questions

• Can Teach (scroll 1/2 way down)

Purchase Resources for Yes/No Questions

• Linguisystems Yes/No Software (Preschool)
• Linguisystems Five Set Book
• Multimedia Speech Pathology
• Just for Adults Yes/No Questions