Reflecting on what ‘you said’ as a way of reintroducing difficult topics in child mental health assessments

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Kiyimba, N. & O’Reilly, M. (2018). Reflecting on what ‘you said’ as a way of reintroducing difficult topics in child mental health assessments. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 23(3), pp. 148-154, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/camh.12215. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-ArchivingBackground In child and adolescent mental health assessments, questions are integral to the process. There has been limited research focused on the assessment process, or on how questions are constructed within this clinical environment. Methods We examined 28 naturally occurring initial assessments, with particular attention to how practitioners used questions in their communication with children and young people. We utilised conversation analysis to examine the data. Results Analysis revealed a particular type of question preface used to reintroduce a prior topic. This was achieved through the use of ‘you said x’ as a foundation for asking a follow-up question and demonstrated active listening. Conclusions Arguably, this approach is a useful way of gathering assessment-relevant information in a child-centred way