Who vs. Where vs. What - Real Life Practice

We all agree that it is crucial for our learners to learn to discriminate WH questions. The following outlines how to have your learner practice in "real life" where it counts!

Who/What/Where Discrimination

Step 1: One item, person in same room

S^D1: Present Learner with an item and tell him "Give the (object) to (person)", "Give this to (person)" or "Go and give this to (person)" or "Find (person) and give this to (him/her)."

R1: Learner responds appropriately and then returns to instructor.

S^D2: Instructor asks ...

any of the following questions:

a. "Who did you give the (object) to?"

b. "What did you give (person)?"

c. "Who has the (object)?"

d. "You gave (person) the ...."

e. "(Person) has the...."

R2: Learner responds appropriately.

Data Collection: Trial by Trial

Average Number of Trials: 30-50 trials a day
Graph the percent correct for the set of responses.

Step 2: One item, person in different room

S^D1: Present Learner with an item and tell him "Give the (object) to (person)", "Give this to (person)" or "Go and give this to (person)" or "Find (person) and give this to (him/her)."

R1: Learner responds appropriately and then returns to instructor.

S^D2: Instructor asks any of the following questions:

a. "Who did you give the (object) to?"
b. "What did you give (person)?"
c. "Who has the (object)?"
d. "You gave (person) the ...."
e. "(Person) has the...."

R2: Learner responds appropriately.

Systematically Target the Various Rooms of the House:
Target 1: Living room to dining room
Target 2: Dining room to living room
Target 3: Dining room to kitchen
Target 4: Kitchen to dining room
Target 5: Hallway outside the kitchen to Learner’s bedroom
Target 6: Learner’s room to the kitchen
Target 7: Learner’s room to the dining room
Target 8: Learner’s room to the living room

• Once Learner has achieved mastery criteria for Living room to dining room, conduct a probe for the "Where" question for Target 1.  Be sure to use the visuals to teach the responses.

• Once Learner has achieved criteria after Target 2, probe for generalization across the remaining targets in order to determine the current level of difficulty.

Data Collection: First/Last Data

Step 3:

S^D1: "Go to the (location) and (action)."
R1: Learner responds appropriately.

S^D2: Instructor asks any of the following questions;

a. "Where did you go?"
b. "What did you do?"
c. "What room where you in?"
d. "Where did you (action)?"
e. "You went to the ...."
f. "In the (location) you..."

Data Collection: Trial by Trial

Graphing should reflect the percent correct for the set.

• Once Learner has achieved mastery criteria, introduce the "who" question (see Step 4)....

More to come in the next Post!


- Ray Cepeda