You have probably
noticed that when adults are talking with children, adults tend to rely heavily
on questions. “What’s that?” “Is that a truck?” “Do you like playing with cars?”
“Are you excited for daddy to come home?”
When children are asked
a question, a child is required to only provide a limited response, usually
only one word. Many times, the questions we ask are of things we already know
the answer to, there is really only one
response a child can give. This, unintentionally, shuts down a child’s novel
ideas and novel language. If we shift our conversational pattern away from questions
and towards comments, we have the potential to shift daily moments into
powerful opportunities for learning.
Three main reasons that
comments are more powerful than
questions:
1)
A comment seeks novel information and
requires the child to use multiple parts of the brain in constructing a reply.
· Instead
of vocabulary recall (What’s that? “truck”), a child needs to process what the
adult is saying and construct a novel response. When a response is novel, new
pathways are being formed between different parts of the brain.
2)
A comment has the potential to keep the
conversation going and this supports both novel language development as well as
the interaction and relationship between the adult and child.
· A
question tends to shut a conversation down. It provides for one-turn in the conversation.
o
Adult: “What’s that?”
Child:
“A truck.”
· A
comment provides limitless possibilities for conversational turns. There is no
number that comments are limited to.
o
Adult: “My truck is going fast!”
o
Child: “My truck is passing your truck!”
o
Adult: “Oh no! I gotta go faster!”
o
Etc..
3)
Comments
help the child have the freedom to decide what they want to
talk about.
· When
we ask questions, we may be limiting the freedom of thought and ideas a child
can have or may even be unintentionally telling a child their thoughts and
ideas are wrong.
o
Adult looking at what a child drew: “Is
that your mommy?”
o
Child: “NO. I was drawing robot!”
· An
alternative for questions about pictures is to simply comment on factual things
that you see on the paper.
o
“Wow! You used purple right here!”
o
“There are so many circles!”
References
Pepper, J., & Weitzman, E. (2004). It Takes Two to Talk:
A practical guide for parents of children with language delays (2nd ed.).
Toronto: The Hanen Centre.
