Abstract
In recent issues of Word of Mouth, I have discussed Marion Blank’s concept of language use existing along a perception–language distance (Blank, Rose, & Berlin, 1978). Blank suggested that language that explains why and how is the most abstract. This level of language abstraction is particularly difficult for children with language impairment and autism. Blank described young children’s reception and productive development of “why” (Blank, 1975).
Blank used the term reception rather than comprehension or understanding, because children’s early responses to why questions do not indicate understanding; only awareness that why requires a different response than what, where, who. What, where, and who can be meaningfully learned when the focus is only on the nominal phrase (e.g., Where the ball?). By contrast, why always refers to predicates or whole sentences. Why with a nominal phrase is usually meaningless (Why ball?).
Children’s first expressive use of why is in response to negative statements spoken by adults, but they do not attend to the adult’s response. For example, the adult says “no cookies before dinner,” and the child says, “why?” Around 2 years of age, when children begin to ask why, their questions typically appear meaningless. For example, a parent said, “That’s the garage door.” In response, the child asked “Why the garage door?” Children can see the answer to who, what, where questions but usually cannot see the answer to why questions. They must figure out what why questions are referring to. One can only learn that through interactions with adults who are asking and answering why questions.
The answers to many why questions are intangible or not observable (e.g., Why is Dad late for dinner? Why do children go to school? Why did James lose the race? Why is it snowing)? Some why questions, however, do link more closely to obvious situations or experiences (Why are you wearing a sweater?—because I’m cold. Why is Mike wearing pajamas?—because he is going to bed). Why questions that link closely to children’s experiences can be used to teach children the types of responses required by why questions. Jamie Sue Allen developed a book titled, Why, Monkey, Why? for teaching why comprehension that is available as a free download from several websites (e.g., http://se.sbceo.org/pdf/AT%20Resources/Why%20Monkey%20Why%20book.pdf or http://classroom.leanderisd.org/users/3,374/docs/whymonkeywhy.pdf).
On each page, monkey wants, does, or has something. The child is asked why monkey wants the object, why he has an object, or why he is doing what he is doing, for example, the child is shown a picture of the monkey wearing pajamas. The adult reads, “Monkey is wearing pajamas. Why is monkey wearing pajamas?” From among a set of pictures, the child selects a bed and puts it next to the monkey. (Velcro dots can be put on the objects and each page with the monkey so the child can attach the pictures). The adult reads, “because he is going to bed.”
For each page, the child selects an item that relates to the reason. Other examples are:
Monkey has a banana. Why does Monkey have a banana? Because he is hungry. Monkey wants soap. Why does Monkey want soap? Because he wants to wash his hands.
Children with autism may exhibit particular difficulty answering why questions regarding persons’ feelings, for example, Why is Diego sad? Why is Kai Mei angry? One could make books similar to the Why, Monkey, Why? book. Put faces of persons showing different emotions in a book and have children select pictures of situations that might explain those feelings. Excellent photos of children ages 10 to 17 years with expressions of happy, sad, angry, and afraid are available for free download from:
http://devepi.duhs.duke.edu/NIMH_Pictures.html
Jenny is afraid? Why is Jenny afraid? Jenny is afraid because she sees a snake; because the house is on fire.
The Child Study Center at Rutgers has a superb set of affective facial expressions of 2- to 8-year-old children of differing ethnicities showing the emotions happy, sad, angry, fearful, surprised, disgusted, and neutral. The set, known as CAFÉ (The Child Affective Face Set), is available from: https://www.childstudycenter-rutgers.com/the-child-affective-facial-expression-se. Unfortunately, it can only be accessed by persons employed in universities.