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Conversation Treatment Options
Before beginning to teach conversation, you should be sure that the child is able to readily request items and activities as well as label the items in his or her environment spontaneously. The child should also be able to maintain brief eye contact with an adult.
To begin teaching conversation, you want to find activities that are motivating to the child. We often begin with fill-in the blank activities for initial teaching. Song fill-ins as well as fill-ins for common phrases are often the most successful. Phrases like “up and down” or “ready set go” can be incorporated into the child’s highly preferred activities, creating motivation for filling in the blank. Songs are often incorporated into many of the child’s daily activities, so the children often hear the songs over and over. Singing the child’s favorite song and pausing throughout may give the child an opportunity to fill in some of the words. Another common fill-in that is used is animal sounds. Saying “The cow says” and waiting for the child to fill in “moo” is another way to begin basic conversation. From here, you can incorporate fill-ins for all different things including, functions and features of items, social questions, classes of items etc. Once the child is able to readily fill in blanks when presented with songs, common phrases, features, functions etc., it is now time to move onto having the child answer questions.
When teaching the child to answer basic questions, it is often an easy transition to begin when you choose questions using what has already been taught with fill-ins. You can ask the child questions regarding features, functions, classes and basic social questions. These questions to begin are often “what” questions, and later “where” and “when” questions are added on. “How” and “Why” questions usually follow well later. The questions should also be asked in various ways to avoid the child only being able to answer questions when presented with specific words in a specific order. The child should also be asked various questions about an activity, event, toy etc. to begin working on back and forth conversation. Many children are able to complete up to this step and then often become stuck when proceeding to the next steps.
Once the child is able to answer several questions, the next step is to teach the child not only to provide information, but to request it as well. This can be taught in many ways, but I have found that the most effective way to teach this skill is to create opportunities in which the child actually seeks the information. This can be done in games, or when playing with a favorite item that the child may not know all information about. The child is actually motivated to request information about the game or item from another person. After the child is able to request information, the final step is teaching the child to engage in back and forth conversation both providing and requesting information. It is here that maintained eye contact, body language and active listening can later be taught. Choosing topics of interest to the child will help to promote motivation for communication.
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