Questions Met With Silence

 I am working with a student who repeatedly indicates an aspect of their schedule using a single utterance (in this case sign) to ask a question or seek out reassurance about the schedule. The communication is predictable, rarely strays off of four or five reiterated signs, and seems to carry a lot of underlying communication. The communication centers on the day’s schedule and sometimes the student requests a complex response by signing “first, second, third…” to indicate that he/she is waiting for a list.

MY OVERALL GOAL is to help the student understand that I understand the single sign as a question and that what I am thinking/understanding may be different than what she is trying to communicate. The student’s “lunch” + raised eyebrows, I understand to mean, “When is lunch?” The student’s “science, snack?” I understand as “What will happen next?”

I am fairly certain that sometimes the student is asking about the schedule and sometimes the student is trying to say something else, like “I am hungry” or “I don’t want to sit here right now, when is the next thing going to happen?” or “I don’t feel good, this is boring, I am frustrated, etc.” However, one of the only real back-and-forth exchanges the student has with folks has to do with understanding and reiterating the schedule. In these interactions I think the student feels some mastery over what is signed and what he/she can expect to see signed and spoken back and therefore he student is stuck inside this one concept.

Today the student was getting agitated during a science lesson and started signing “Lunch?” Because we were in a larger class setting I started by ignoring this repetitive question. Then we made eye contact a few times and I signed “not yet” and tried to change the subject. We moved to a one-to-one lesson. Here when the student would sign the repetitive question we would go get a sentence strip which had the longer “When is lunch?” written out on it. I signed, “You are asking me a question – (we read it together) When is lunch?” Then I handed the student a different sentence strip with the time lunch begins on it and had the student put both the question and the response in the sentence strip holder.

When the student asked me again, “Lunch?” I pointed to the sentence strips and signed, “You are asking me a question, you are thinking in your mind, When is lunch?” and then I signed the answer “11:35, time.”

When the student asked me again I drew one stick figure of me with a thought bubble over my head and one of the student. In my thought bubble I drew another stick figure of the student with a question mark above their head and the sentence - I think (name of student) is asking me “When is lunch?” Then in the student’s thought bubble I drew a lunch box and a question mark and the sentence “When is lunch?” Then I added, “I am hungry.”

As the student continued to make the request I added more possibilities to the student’s thought bubbles. My thought bubble remained the same. I signed/spoke the details in the picture as I added more questions the student may have been asking.

The student remained engaged in the interaction, but did not indicate if the different ideas in the thought bubbles seemed closer to what was being communicated through pointing or a smile. We moved away from the task as the student became less connected to the interaction.

Tomorrow I would like to try a more visual (stick figure/thought bubble) approach before bringing the student to the sentence strips.

My goals are to help the student understand that a question is being asked and model how a question is answered. I also want to help the student identify the question or communication more accurately. Additionally, I hope to help the student transfer the vocabulary they understand when reading and writing to the word bank they use when engaging in expressive language.