Examples of Verbal Feedback in Therapy

Examples of excellent (positive) verbal feedback: "That's right," "You're right," "Yep, that's right," "Great. That's a great answer," "Exactly," with specific information provided such as, "Good job; I like how you corrected yourself. That's what we want you to do."

Examples of good verbal feedback: "You're close; that's close," with an explanation of incorrect or missing information. "There you go," "You're doing great," and "Good job."

Examples of poor verbal feedback: "Hmm-mmm," "Okay," or silence.

Verbal Feedback in Testing and in Treatment

When testing, the idea is not to give verbal feedback that indicates whether the individual was correct or incorrect. The VF you give should be more of an encouraging kind: "You're doing well." "Just do your best."

During treatment, however, your verbal feedback is therapy. Without your verbal feedback, the individual you are treating does not know whether his or her responses are correct or incorrect. If you do not indicate incorrectness, then the person does not have an opportunity to learn the best response. If you do not indicate correctness, the individual also does not receive reinforcement for that correct response. In other words, no treatment is occurring.

Keep this in mind as you approach evaluation and therapy.

Therapy: Verbal Feedback, Cueing, Etc.

Verbal feedback in therapy: Telling the patient "that's right," "you got it," or "that's correct" is great verbal feedback. Perfect feedback is: "That's right; it is a zebra!"

Rewording the stimulus is a helpful cue: Asking "if wood burns, what melts?" assists a patient to complete the verbal analogy "Burn is to wood as melt is to _________."

During a verbal fluency task, remain quiet while the patient is listing exemplars unless they pause, or deny ability to think of any more items.

During word retrieval tasks such as confrontational naming, should give a letter cue or phonemic cue prior to giving model.