Between the ages of 36 to 42 months, most typically developing kids start to replace direct requests (like “Give me!”) with indirect requests (like “Can I have..?” or “Would you please…?”). No one knows for sure why we do this – it’s certainly not the most efficient way to ask for things. But so-called “indirect speech” has been studied by linguists, philosophers and speech pathologists for decades (e.g. Grice, 1975; Lakoff, 1973).

Most children pick up indirect request-making skills by around 3 1/2 years of age by watching others. But some students (especially many children with communication difficulties) need some help.

In this resource, we focus on “Would you please…?” as an indirect way to ask for things.