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By Tahirih Bushey M.A.C.C.C.Speech & Language Pathologist
I teach Yes/No games very early when I work with children. I teach them to children at all developmental levels, although I might teach the same game in a much more verbal way with a child at the Conversational Partner Level than I would with a child at the Language Partner Level. For children at the Social Partner Level, I would pick games like the Ikea Swing Game described below. For a description of these levels, see Not Too Easy, Not Too Hard.
I really understood how important yes/no games are after seeing yes/no games at a Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) training (see acknowledgements). These games teach skills that set the foundation for an amazing number of other skills. Most importantly, non-verbal yes/no games can help your child learn to look at your face for information which is called social referencing. It is hard to come up with a skill that is more important for a child to learn than social referencing and there is no easier way to start.
Helping your child understand all of the various meanings of no can help your child feel less confused and less apt to be upset when he or she hears no. Some of these games can be used for the purpose of teaching your child to stay calm after hearing no. While many children with ASD are upset by or themselves over-use the word no, the word yes is also confusing and these games help clarify the meaning of yes. These games are fun and most children enjoy both the yes and the no as they play.
Below, you will find games for each purpose:
In No, that is not right games you put something in a place that it clearly does not belong.
For example the Ring-a-Thing toy would be a good toy for this game. If your child can match colors, you can purposely put the wrong color ring on a pole person. For instance, you might put a yellow ring on the red pole guy.
This will be WRONG! So you say No! In doing so, you will be expressing your child's sentiments exactly. Then take the ring off and put it where it matches. Now you say Yes! In the following clip, this is done nonverbally but the game should be taught verbally first.
Puzzles and other sorting games can be played in this same way. Putting your child's shoe on his or her hand will also teach this meaning of No.
I do this kind of game playfully, not only to teach the meaning of Yes and No but also to teach flexible thinking. I am always so pleased when a child starts putting things in the wrong place on purpose in order to hear me say No and then in the right place in order to hear me say Yes. The giggle that many kids get from purposely doing something "wrong" is exciting because it indicates flexible thinking.
No, not yet games are games where your child wants you to do something, like push him or her in the swing. See Ikea Swing Game.
You teach the idea of No, not yet when you shake your head No. Perhaps you say, at the beginning, not yet with a smile. You continue until you suddenly nod your head, say Yes, and give a push on the swing.
It is important that you do not create a pattern (like saying two no's and then a yes every time) but instead say Yes after a random number of no's. Otherwise, your child will learn the pattern and not the meaning of the words. Even more importantly, your child will not learn that he or she will be OK despite the uncertainty of not knowing when you will say YES!
Your child may not like the No at all at the beginning. No can be upsetting regardless of whether it is done with a word or a head shake. If No is upsetting, do a lot more Yes head nods than No head shakes.
Your child may try to take control of the game. Don't let your child determine when you are going to say Yes. You are trying to help your child accept your No without becoming upset. Just smile calmly and keep control in this game.
No, not yet can be played when pouring juice into a cup, turning on the faucet, throwing a ball, blowing bubbles, jumping on a trampoline, dropping balls down a slide - you get the point. As long as you control when something begins in a game that your child likes, you can practice a verbal or a non-verbal yes/no game. Your child should also, eventually learn to say No and Yes in these games and learn how to say No, not yet and YES!
No, not here games are where the No means that something is not in this place.
In these games the searcher points to a location and asks, Here? while looking for a hidden object. The person hiding things indicates verbally or non-verbally if the object is in the hidden spot.
In the Point Box with Feathers and Point Box Dinosaurs video clips, we used a special wooden salt cellar to play this game. You can, of course, make a point game out of a group of cottage cheese containers or other little boxes or by putting cups up-side-down as we did in Point Cups. It is helpful, though, to adhere all the containers to a single tray or board so that you can lift the set up high and have your face visible to the child at the same time as the containers are visible. Pulling the box close to your own face helps your child shift attention back and forth between the containers and your face and thus be able to watch for the Yes or No rather searching randomly in all the containers.
The words Yes and No are often used to indicate preference. This can be very hard for kids with ASD to understand because preference is an abstract, social concept. It can be hard for a child with ASD to understand the idea of just choosing one thing one time and another thing another time based upon preference.
In the No, that’s not what I want and No, I don't want to games your child or you say Yes or No in order to indicate preference. There is no right or wrong in these games.
The Push Truck Game and Playing Animal Noses Together are two games that teach this kind of No and Yes.
I explicitly teach the phrases No, I don't want to and Yes, I want to in games to show children that it is fine for each person to decide what to do based upon what they feel like doing. Many children seem confused by the idea that others simply choose not to do something out of personal preference. You may find that your child is approaching every decision as though every choice was a right or wrong choice. Helping your child learn that many things are simply a preference choice can be liberating for your child. I often see a reaction that looks like glee as a child begins to giggle when saying No for no reason but preference.
Here is a clip where a little girl is asking her younger sister for train cars and her sister is saying Yes or No, as she chooses. You can see what a giggle it is for the younger sister to say No to her older sister, just because she chooses to do so. Use these video clips, and others on the side bar as video models to show your child that he or she (and others) can say No and it is ok.
Many children learn quickly how to say NO! in order to refuse or reject or protest. These meanings are not hard to teach if your child does not already say NO! for these purposes. If your child can not talk yet, put the word on a Talking Button and then model how this can be used to protest or refuse. The words NO! or Don't! are very good alternatives if your child is now hitting, biting, pushing, or running away in order to express protest or refusal. Remember though, a child will use the word instead of the behavior if, and only if, the word works as well as the behavior does to protest or refuse.
Children with ASD often interpret a No from an adult or another child as a crisis and a call to arms. No means that something is not going to happen as the child expected. It means that a most cherished hope has been crushed. The world as the child knows and loves it is lost! In other words, these children get upset whenever the word No is spoken.
I have had children who walked into the clinic asking me not to say "no". Don't say no today, Tahirih! or No say no, Tahirih! as another little girl used to say.
By playing these yes/no games, children with ASD learn a variety of meanings for the word No. Often, they become less upset when hearing the word. The word No does not automatically mean that a cherished expectation is crushed. If your child tends toward a catastrophic interpretation of no, play lots of these games.
Yes is almost always learned later than No. Even children who understand the word will rarely use it.
Children with ASD seem to find it hard to understand why one would say Yes. It is more common for a child to agree by repeating whatever you just said. For example, when you ask, Do you want a cookie? the child responds affirmatively by repeating Cookie!
It is consistent and logical that children with ASD should find Yes hard to grasp but explaining why is complicated. For now it will suffice to say that you will need to teach your child to say Yes. These games can help you accomplish this.
Many of my young friends find it quite awkward to nod or shake their head. I am not sure if it is the motor planning challenge of these gestures or the concept that makes it so difficult. Watching video clips that model these nonverbal gestures will often speed up learning. Combine exaggerated head nods and head shakes with the words Yes and No initially to teach both the verbal and the non-verbal yes/no. Over time, stop saying the words out loud and simply use the non-verbal head gestures.
Non-verbal yes/no games are great for helping your child look at your face for information. I teach these very early and go back to non-verbal games often to keep children looking at my face. These games work much better for teaching children to visually reference your face than prompting a child verbally to Look at me over and over.
These games help your child learn to say Yes and No in a variety of ways:
Flexible Thinking and Emotional Regulation Objectives:
Blog Posts on Teaching
YES and NO:
autism.game@gmail.com
I teach Yes/No games very early when I work with children. I teach them to children at all developmental levels, although I might teach the same game in a much more verbal way with a child at the Conversational Partner Level than I would with a child at the Language Partner Level. For children at the Social Partner Level, I would pick games like the Ikea Swing Game described below. For a description of these levels, see Not Too Easy, Not Too Hard. 
