It can be hard to come up with questions on the spot in therapy, especially when as a busy SLP you have tons of things on your plate! I know from experience that sometimes it’s best to just have resources ready that you can quickly pull up for whenever you need them. So save, bookmark, print, whatever this post of what questions for speech therapy so you always have it handy!

WH question goals are seen all the time in the goals that I inherit from other speech language pathologists. The reasoning behind them seems obvious. We give a language test or ask a teacher what the student has trouble with. Generally speaking, WH questions are hard for our students with language impairments.

WH questions can be complex, especially when you get into when, how, or why questions. If you want to learn more about what are the WH questions – check out this blog post here.

But one of the easiest ones to tackle first is WHAT questions. Answering ‘what’ questions is a great foundational skill, but so often we as therapists work on it incorrectly. Here’s how –

We don’t teach the skill first. We just serial test it.

This is a common problem in speech therapy sessions in general. We have goals to work on and we work on them by essentially ‘testing’ the child over and over again. Yes, we (surely) give feedback. But imagine if you didn’t understand a concept and were tested on it over and over again. Eventually, you may get the skill through a lot of trial and error. It would be boring at best and discouraging/frustrating at worst.

Now imagine instead that you are taught the concept. You test and don’t do well, so you are taught again (ideally in a different way) and this time… you improve! At a much faster rate and with way less frustration!

This is how it (should) work in a classroom, and it should also work this way in your therapy sessions! I’m sure you know this and teach skills constantly, but I had to hop on my little soap box there for a second! I hope the 21 questions below are a valuable resource, but don’t forget to teach WHAT questions as well! Personally, I like to use visuals, examples, and discuss the different types of WHAT questions. I will break down the different types for you as well!

What Questions for Speech Therapy

Labeling Objects, Actions, Etc.

WHAT….

1. Is that?

2. do you see?

3. do you have?

4. is your password?

5. Is the boy doing in this picture?

6. color is an apple?

7. shape is this table?

8. animal is that?

9. animal says ‘moo’?

10. number am I holding up?

Identifying Function of Objects

WHAT

11. do you do with this?

12. does a watch do?

13. can you do with a phone?

CTD. What Questions for Speech Therapy

Qualitative / Quantitative Concept Questions

WHAT…

14. picture shows something old?

15. item is hot?

16. picture shows many marbles?

Open Ended, Problem Solving Questions

WHAT…

17. do you need help with?

18. is confusing you?

19. do you think about this?

20. should we do next?

21. are the the pros/cons of this?

As you can see, what questions for speech therapy are more complex than you may think. A goal for answering ‘what’ questions is fairly broad. Does the child need to work on labeling objects? Identifying the function of items? Can we incorporate other concepts? If it’s big open ended questions, then we probably need to look at targeting the underlying skills used to answer those types of questions.

I hope this list was helpful for you! If you’re looking for more helpful language building activities, check out these products in my TPT store – I even have activities for WH questions!

Hop down in the comments and let me know your thoughts on WHAT questions and any follow up questions you have! Thanks for being here!

-Chloe B | School SLP