R. Lavoie on circumstances
Why do we hear—and give—answers to questions?
Over on It’s Like This,” Robin Lavoie has a post entitled, “Favorites: It’s not as cut and dry as you think it is, OK?” (15 November 2025) that provided wonderful analysis of her son’s answers to some questions about colors. The launching question for her analysis is the colors he uses to describe people.
My son often assigns colors to people.
These labels can change, and we are not sure what they mean, but he always has a response if you ask, “What color is Mommy?”
The other night, I was “green.” Daddy was “blue.” He labeled himself as “green.” We asked about more of his family, and he named them—my parents both as green, my husband’s dad as purple, his aunt red, and her kids (his cousins) as blue and green.
Ms. Lavoie examined alternative explanations for her son’s answers about colors for people as well as other answers (favorite animals, favorite foods). Along the way, fine writer that she is, Ms. Lavoie wove in a reference to an interview that media personality Stephen Colbert conducted with actor Joaquin Phoenix. It fits the topic of answers to questions quite well. The entire essay works quite well. It’s worth a read (or listen, as she provided a voiced version, too).
On of the reasons that readers of Special Education Today will find Ms. Lavoie’s post intriguing is that it skates right up next to—and even dances a bit with—behavior analysis. There are lots (and lots) of explanations for answers to questions.
Some explanations may have to do with what someone’s learned. Ms. Lavoie provided examples of how one’s immediate environment may affect one’s responses to questions. Some explanations may have to do with simple stuff like what one is holding in his hands when answering. Of course, some of those explanations may even be accompanied by analyses of blood flow in the brain.1 But, Ms. Lavoie provided much more fundamental explanations. Context (“setting variables” and “discriminative stimuli”) matter.
A couple-few 100 regular readers will recall that Ms. Lavoie made a cameo appearance in an earlier SET post entitled “Parents as pals” (29 October 2023). I hope I got the context right in my response about her advocacy. Anyway, readers should check her perspective by reading her stack, It’s like this; there are a lot of SET readers over there already learning about her life providing care, love, and a lot more to her 20-something son who is autistic. Join ‘em.
Reference
Rich, E. L., Stoll, F. M., & Rudebeck, P. H. (2018). Linking dynamic patterns of neural activity in orbitofrontal cortex with decision making. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 49, 24-32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2017.11.002
Footnote
Not that Ms. Lavoie went to this extreme, but y’all know how popular that neuropsychological stuff is these days! Indeed, some psychologists (e.g., Rich et al., 2018) proposed that statements such as preferences have connections to neural activity in specific parts of the brain, the orbitofrontal cortex. Whoopee! That tells us a whole lot about teaching and learning, doesn’t it? (Gag.)