Y is for Yes/No Answers: Building Skills

When reading the yummy/yucky book, responding if they think an item is yummy or yucky with a yes or a no is an example of using a resource to help your child learn to answer yes/no questions.

At some point most children go through a stage where everything is a no.  Be patient, they are learning and need to practice this social skill.  

The typical age for this skill is quite young. After all, most people have seen an infant shake their head no to something or a toddler tantrum their NO emphatically.  It is an important skill to be able to express their opinion and declare their needs and wants. 

For a parent whose child does not respond to them, a simple yes or no response would be very helpful to gain some understanding of their child's desires.  

It is not always as simple as it seems.  When a parent asks, do you want to play ball or colour and the child answers NO, what comes next? Do you keep searching for something they want or remain with those two options?  If you ask if they want spaghetti or a sandwich and they respond, YES, do you give them both or do you assume they did not understand the options?

Yes and no are not always consistent responses.  They may say NO to going outside even when they love to go outdoors for a variety of reasons.  Maybe they don't want to wear the shoes you are telling them to put on to go outside.  Maybe they know they need to go to the bathroom first but don't want to admit it. Maybe they want to go outside later when a friend will be outside too.  Maybe they are hungry but do not know how to share that information with you.  They may say YES because they want to go outside but then participate in negative behaviours when you try to follow through because of reasons such as the ones above that they cannot communicate effectively.  In these cases, the child understands what they want to do and actually gave you correct information but that information appears to be wrong because their behaviours do not line up.  The reason behind that though is an inability to explain all of their thoughts/needs/wishes to you.  Be patient as you work it through.

Yes/no is a useful as a simple question to find out what a child knows.  Is this a giraffe?  Is the crayon red? Is that a sad face? Is it sunny outside? Is your cracker square?  You can see if they understand colours, shapes, names of animals, weather and facial expressions all with a single word response from them.

For a child who is not interested in talking or interacting, sometimes this type of question will break the ice in the conversation or initiate an upcoming activity.  For example, 'It IS sunny outside? Yay! So it is NOT raining? (no) Awesome!  Then do you want to go play outside in the sun?" or "Then what clothes should we wear to go to the beach today?", or "The sun is hot today, go get the sunscreen. We will put it on before we go out." or "What colour is the sun?" and so forth.  This may help further the interaction.

I trust that offers some information on why yes/no is an important skill to build and ways to practice use it in communicating with the child(ren) in your life.