Who Questions for Kids 1:
Who’s This? (Self and Caregivers)

To start teaching who questions we will start with simply asking “who’s this” when pointing either at your child, yourself, or another caregiver. These are the easiest type of who questions to answer, but be prepared that it might take your child a while to learn this if they have trouble with identifying people’s names. When you ask “who’s this” and point to your child, you want him to say his name. If he doesn’t say his name, you can say it for him and have him imitate it. Then, point to yourself and say “who’s this?”. If your child doesn’t answer, say “Mommy” or “Daddy” or whatever you call yourself and have him repeat it back to you. Keep doing this until he can spontaneously say your name, his own, and other caregivers if there are any.

Who Questions for Kids 2:
Who’s This? (Pictures of Familiar People)

The next who questions we want your child to answer are “who’s this” with pictures of familiar people. Choose photos of people that your child comes into contact with frequently. Children that he sees on a regular basis would be good but not distant relatives that he sees once a year. However, if you have a distant relative that is highly offended that your child doesn’t know her name, you may want to throw her picture in to practice! J Put a picture in front of your child and say “who’s this?” Start with pictures of you, your child, and other caregivers. When he can spontaneously name each of those pictures, start adding in other familiar people. Just as in the last step, you may need to say the name for him and have him repeat it for a while until he gets better. Once you do that for a while, try giving him shorter cues such as saying just the first sound or syllable in the name and see if he can come up with the rest of it. Keep doing this until your child is able to spontaneously name all of the pictures you have.

Who Questions for Kids 3:
Currently Present “Who” Questions

For this step, you will ask “who” questions about things that are happening right in front of the child. You can ask “who is sitting” or “who is in the room”. You can also ask questions about characters in books or in pictures by saying “who is …-ing” or “who is this”. Keep doing this in the same way as the above steps until your child can answer who questions with the correct person/character.

Who Questions for Kids 4:
“Who” Questions about Past

Now it’s time to ask questions about things that happened in the past and aren’t immediately in front of the child. You an ask questions like “who made your breakfast today” or “who brought you to school”. If your child is struggling with this, you can offer choices or show pictures of people that they can choose from. Keep working on this until they understand that “who = person”. They should be responding with a person, if they don’t always get the person correct.

Who Questions for Kids 5:
Hypothetical “Who” Questions

Now we can ask more vague “who” questions like “who puts out fires” or “who brings the mail”. Community helpers are great options for this! If your child is really struggling with this, you can present them with some picture choices to pick from. You could also give verbal choices if she’s stuck on a particular question. For example, if you asked “who puts bad guys in jail” and she still can’t come up with anything, you could say “do you think it’s the police man, astronaut, or Mommy?”

There you have it! 5 Steps to teaching who questions. It’s very straight-forward but it may take some time so be patient. As with all speech and language skills, it will be well-worth your hard work if your child can learn this skill.