Manners and social words

Also called Politeness words, Social vocabulary, Manners set

Please, thank you and sorry are worth having. They are not worth withholding a drink for, and a board that demands 'please' first teaches the wrong lesson.

What it is

Manners and social words are the small phrases that oil a conversation: please, thank you, sorry, excuse me, you're welcome, well done, never mind, pardon. They are not requests and they carry little information. They matter because other people react to them, and a person who can say "sorry" or "thanks" is treated more warmly by strangers than one who cannot.

Which is also the problem. Because they are visible, they get overtaught. Some boards, and some adults, insist on "please" before honouring a request, which turns a child's "drink" into a two-step test they must pass to be given water.

Who it can help

Everyone who talks to people outside the family: at school, in shops, on the bus, at the GP. Social words are a real advantage for a person who wants to be liked and included, and there is no age at which they stop being useful. They help adults in work and adults in care settings, where staff too often go unthanked because the person had no way to say it.

They do not help a person who cannot yet say what they want. "Please" without a request is nothing. If a board has "please" and "thank you" but not "stop", "help" or "no", the priorities are backwards.

How it works

Social words are phrases, so a card speaks the whole thing: "thank you" is one press, as is "excuse me". They belong on the home page or in a set of their own, because they are needed at speed and in every situation. The Talk board has a manners set among its 14 for exactly this.

The way they are learned is by hearing them at the right moments, not by prompting. A partner who presses "thank you" on the person's board when handing something over, and "sorry" when they bump the wheelchair, is modelling manners the way speaking children learn them: by watching, for years, until they copy.

Withholding is the mechanism to avoid. When "please" is demanded before a drink, the person learns that their words are conditional and that the adult's rule outranks their thirst. Model politeness, never gate on it.

Getting started

This week, honour every request without asking for "please". Then model "please" and "thank you" yourself, on the board, a dozen times a day, without commenting on it.

Add "sorry", "excuse me" and "never mind". "Never mind" in particular gives a person a graceful way out when the device has failed or the listener has given up, and it is almost never on a board.

If a school or setting is gating requests on manners, ask them to stop, and explain why: the request is the skill, the manners come later and by imitation.

Where to get help

Communication Matters for AAC vocabulary and partner training. Speech and Language UK explains how social language develops in children. For autistic people, the National Autistic Society covers social communication without the assumption that manners are the goal.