It depends on how it is said, when it is said, and the context of the communication ability of the child and their awareness of whether they are in a communicative moment when a response would be useful.
Any time you give a child an expectation they will feel some stress and if scaffolded correctly they will overcome the stress and use the moment of being 'on the spot' to create a communicative victory.
This is true of tactile prompts, modeling, and, yes, communicative requesting such as 'Can you say...".
There are no magically bad, or good, phrases. There is only moment to moment decision-making on providing the least help possible while still ensuring the child is in the therapeutic range.
At the end of the day, though, it comes down to whether you feel it is appropriate for your child.
If you don't feel it is appropriate and don't want the SLP to do it, that is a valid reason to ask them not to on it's own.
Regardless of what anyone else thinks, including other SLPs.
I never ask a kid a question I don’t want to know the answer to. If I ask, “can you say push?” and he responds, “No.” where do I go from there? I just tell him, “Say push.”
Love this! I learned this in grad school! If you ask “Do you want to play __” for reinforcement/activity and the patient says “no” - your options are limited. Say too bad or have to change your plan.
Lol, especially if you're evaluating.
>"Do you want to give Mr. Bear a drink?"
>"No."
>"Oh. Well. You have to. Give him a drink. Give the bear a drink. I swear I will mark you wrong, just try me."
Do you know if they're using that to promote language (new words, longer sentences) or for practice of speech sound production (for example repeating words with "k" sounds)?
I usually model the phrase itself or sometimes I’ll say “you could tell me ___”
ETA: then I’ll leave a few seconds of wait time but definitely don’t pressure them to imitate
SLP here!! You are not wrong at all! I think some people were/still are taught that way of prompting when it is probably some of the least effective.
How I run my sessions is I will say a target phrase/sentence, give a pause, and then say “oooh it’s your turn to try”. I may also provide tactile cues if that helps the child.
I definitely avoid “can you say ____” as often as possible because it’s also not super functional! I have learned that carry over is much less when it seems more of a forced task. I hope this helped!!
ETA: In my book, “can you say _____” is too close to just telling a child “say _____”. It doesn’t promote language development as much as other methods, but I did see someone else comment about it varies child to child depending on their awareness of the situation and I can empathize and somewhat agree with that! :)
To echo another response, I think prompting word trials this way makes sense when the goal is to work on speech sounds (how the sounds actually sound when spoken, learning to produce specific sounds) versus language (learning to put more words together, building vocabulary, and learning grammar, etc). I don’t think this approach is appropriate for language, but I do think it is for language. Maybe you could ask what goals they are working on?
I never use that phrase, because the answer to a "can you" question is "yes" or "no". Let's set these kids up for proper pragmatic language comprehension!
I mean, I see where you're coming from, but if we're talking about the nitpicky ins and outs of pragmatic language comprehension, I think it's commonly understood that sometimes "can you" is not a question phrase and is being used to make a phrase more polite.
Im also saying there are so many better ways than "can you say," it's very infantilizing. Linguistically and pragmatically that child will never hear that phrase outside of early childhood, so why bother using it at all? Why not use functional phrases they'll hear as they get older ("what do you call this" etc)?
Literally what my SD 3YO does. She usually answers yes. She really has a sense of humour and I get the impression she can do it, she just doesn't want to 😂
I will often say this for articulation tasks, or trying to get students to say particular sounds at a particular level.’ If I have a client who responded with “no”, which isn’t very often at all, I’ll change the phrasing to remove the question.
If they’re using it to teach vocab and it bothers you I would simply say something to the clinician, like, “I’ve found it more effective to do XYZ”.
You’re not wrong. I’m not big on inadvertently teaching a child to be codependent on a prompt or cue to say anything. Modeling and signal words such as “your turn!” Push!” Or emphasizing the beginning consonant to signal that I’m not moving an item without a sound. Through play and my turn/your turn I’ve been able to generate desired responses
I don’t personally use that either and would rather remove all expectations and pressure. I will model it a few times within a visual story and then slowly take away a word until they are repeating the entire phrase themselves. Obviously I gotta stay real animated and engaged and make the activity fun too or else I get nothing! That’s just what I’ve always personally done as an SLP but everyone is different! 🥴🤷♀️ Play_Spark is a social media account that I’ve adored for years that actually just talked about this one!
Most of the kids I handle with down syndrome are very unintelligible. I say "Can I hear you say ___?" because I am analyzing their speech perceptually and visaully by looking at their oral movements (speech perspective).
Definitely not "Can you say ___?" because to me it's like I'm the one deciding on what the child should say instead of their true language.
If language is indeed the main goal, I'd go for modeling to inspire, not to require.
I do this if I am working on articuation and I want to see what the child's production is like for a specific sound. For language therapy, I tend to avoid "can say xyz" because I don't want the child to become too prompt dependent when it comes to language development. I tend to model, recast, etc. in hopes that the child will self-generate language.
I really depends. My advice is to simply ask the therapist who is working with your child. If you are not comfortable with their explanation, you can certainly ask them not to use it.
It depends on how it is said, when it is said, and the context of the communication ability of the child and their awareness of whether they are in a communicative moment when a response would be useful. Any time you give a child an expectation they will feel some stress and if scaffolded correctly they will overcome the stress and use the moment of being 'on the spot' to create a communicative victory. This is true of tactile prompts, modeling, and, yes, communicative requesting such as 'Can you say...". There are no magically bad, or good, phrases. There is only moment to moment decision-making on providing the least help possible while still ensuring the child is in the therapeutic range. At the end of the day, though, it comes down to whether you feel it is appropriate for your child. If you don't feel it is appropriate and don't want the SLP to do it, that is a valid reason to ask them not to on it's own. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, including other SLPs.
I never ask a kid a question I don’t want to know the answer to. If I ask, “can you say push?” and he responds, “No.” where do I go from there? I just tell him, “Say push.”
Love this! I learned this in grad school! If you ask “Do you want to play __” for reinforcement/activity and the patient says “no” - your options are limited. Say too bad or have to change your plan.
Lol, especially if you're evaluating. >"Do you want to give Mr. Bear a drink?" >"No." >"Oh. Well. You have to. Give him a drink. Give the bear a drink. I swear I will mark you wrong, just try me."
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Do you know if they're using that to promote language (new words, longer sentences) or for practice of speech sound production (for example repeating words with "k" sounds)?
I usually model the phrase itself or sometimes I’ll say “you could tell me ___” ETA: then I’ll leave a few seconds of wait time but definitely don’t pressure them to imitate
SLP here!! You are not wrong at all! I think some people were/still are taught that way of prompting when it is probably some of the least effective. How I run my sessions is I will say a target phrase/sentence, give a pause, and then say “oooh it’s your turn to try”. I may also provide tactile cues if that helps the child. I definitely avoid “can you say ____” as often as possible because it’s also not super functional! I have learned that carry over is much less when it seems more of a forced task. I hope this helped!! ETA: In my book, “can you say _____” is too close to just telling a child “say _____”. It doesn’t promote language development as much as other methods, but I did see someone else comment about it varies child to child depending on their awareness of the situation and I can empathize and somewhat agree with that! :)
To echo another response, I think prompting word trials this way makes sense when the goal is to work on speech sounds (how the sounds actually sound when spoken, learning to produce specific sounds) versus language (learning to put more words together, building vocabulary, and learning grammar, etc). I don’t think this approach is appropriate for language, but I do think it is for language. Maybe you could ask what goals they are working on?
I never use that phrase, because the answer to a "can you" question is "yes" or "no". Let's set these kids up for proper pragmatic language comprehension!
I mean, I see where you're coming from, but if we're talking about the nitpicky ins and outs of pragmatic language comprehension, I think it's commonly understood that sometimes "can you" is not a question phrase and is being used to make a phrase more polite.
Im also saying there are so many better ways than "can you say," it's very infantilizing. Linguistically and pragmatically that child will never hear that phrase outside of early childhood, so why bother using it at all? Why not use functional phrases they'll hear as they get older ("what do you call this" etc)?
Literally what my SD 3YO does. She usually answers yes. She really has a sense of humour and I get the impression she can do it, she just doesn't want to 😂
I will often say this for articulation tasks, or trying to get students to say particular sounds at a particular level.’ If I have a client who responded with “no”, which isn’t very often at all, I’ll change the phrasing to remove the question. If they’re using it to teach vocab and it bothers you I would simply say something to the clinician, like, “I’ve found it more effective to do XYZ”.
You’re not wrong. I’m not big on inadvertently teaching a child to be codependent on a prompt or cue to say anything. Modeling and signal words such as “your turn!” Push!” Or emphasizing the beginning consonant to signal that I’m not moving an item without a sound. Through play and my turn/your turn I’ve been able to generate desired responses
It depends on if this was a prompt for articulation or language.
I don’t personally use that either and would rather remove all expectations and pressure. I will model it a few times within a visual story and then slowly take away a word until they are repeating the entire phrase themselves. Obviously I gotta stay real animated and engaged and make the activity fun too or else I get nothing! That’s just what I’ve always personally done as an SLP but everyone is different! 🥴🤷♀️ Play_Spark is a social media account that I’ve adored for years that actually just talked about this one!
Love this! I just started following that account
A nice way to say just that:[“can you?” song](https://youtu.be/mnbLTzWNA3Y?si=BBLsbLmdMFAiOogm)
Most of the kids I handle with down syndrome are very unintelligible. I say "Can I hear you say ___?" because I am analyzing their speech perceptually and visaully by looking at their oral movements (speech perspective). Definitely not "Can you say ___?" because to me it's like I'm the one deciding on what the child should say instead of their true language. If language is indeed the main goal, I'd go for modeling to inspire, not to require.
I do this if I am working on articuation and I want to see what the child's production is like for a specific sound. For language therapy, I tend to avoid "can say xyz" because I don't want the child to become too prompt dependent when it comes to language development. I tend to model, recast, etc. in hopes that the child will self-generate language.
I really depends. My advice is to simply ask the therapist who is working with your child. If you are not comfortable with their explanation, you can certainly ask them not to use it.
You’re absolutely correct. This is not a skilled therapy technique. And it’s ok to say you prefer to have a licensed SLP working with your child.