Imagine a child who loves listening to a particular song. They ask for it once, twice, perhaps three times. But after several repetitions, even their favorite song may lose its appeal.
In behavioral terms, motivating operations affect both the value of a particular consequence and the likelihood of behavior that has previously produced it.
In plain English, what was worth asking for five minutes ago may no longer be worth the effort.
This makes requesting a moving target. We cannot simply choose a desirable outcome and count on it remaining equally motivating throughout a teaching session.
Social responses are also influenced by motivation and context. But requests often depend on a very specific outcome, making changes in its value particularly relevant.
The very thing that makes requesting meaningful can also make it difficult to teach.
There’s only so much you can ask for. Right?
Some children seem to want only a handful of things. And if requesting depends on wanting something, doesn’t that limit what we can teach?
Less than it seems.
We may be underestimating just how much language can be taught through requests.
Requesting is often associated with the earliest stages of language development: “More.” “Ball.” “Help.”
But requests can become considerably more sophisticated:
“Move the blue chair a little to the left.”
“I want the striped one, not the plain one.”
“Put it behind the box so the ball doesn’t hit it.”
“Take the second street on the right, then turn left at the traffic light.”
They involve vocabulary, attributes, spatial concepts, sentence structure, sequencing, and consideration of what the listener needs to know.
We can also expand the range of things worth requesting.
Suppose a child wants coffee. The finished drink isn’t the only thing they can learn to request. With appropriate teaching, the cup, spoon, coffee, or other materials needed to prepare it can become meaningful requests, too.
The activity remains motivating, but the opportunities for communication multiply.
Requesting is not a small introductory chapter in language development. It can provide opportunities to teach increasingly complex communication.
The takeawayTeaching requests is challenging. Motivation changes, opportunities must be arranged thoughtfully, and a child who can say a word may still not know how to use it to obtain a desired outcome. But we should question the assumptions that knowing a word is enough, that getting one’s needs met makes further communication unnecessary, or that requesting belongs only to the earliest stages of language development. There is room for both: communication that shares an experience and communication that changes one. It isn’t easy, but that’s no reason to leave it to chance. |
Smart people got here first
For the curious, three articles behind the arguments
Lamarre & Holland (1985): On how describing an object doesn’t automatically mean a child can request it.
Bondy & Frost (1998): On prioritizing meaningful, outcome-driven communication before teaching explicit commenting.
Sundberg & Michael (2001): On the central role of motivation and consequences in early request (mand) training.