J. COMMUN. DISORD. 23(1990). 187-203
MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION WITH PRESCHOOL LANGUAGE-DELAYED CHILDREN: STRUCTURING CONVERSATIONS MARY JUNE MOSELEY Gallaudet
University
The discourse skills of mothers and their language-delayed children were examined to determine how participants opened and responded to each other in conversation. Four language-delayed children were matched to four normal children on mean length of utterance. Videotapes were made of the children and their mothers during 15 minutes of play. The types of utterances used to open and respond were similar; however, the flow of dialogue was different for the two groups in the use of invitations, initiations, sustaining, and nonsustaining responses. In the language-delayed child-mother dyads the flow of information through dialogue was interrupted by the necessity to clarify and the lack of definitive control of the turn-taking structure. Conclusions were that there was less shared context between mothers and their language-delayed children. These differences could be explained by the linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic ability of the children.
INTRODUCTION A current theme in the mother-child literature is the development of discourse skills between a mother and her language-learning child. One of the roles of mothers in this process appears to be taking the lead in negotiating shared meaning with young children. Mothers do this by taking a controlling role in dialogue, e.g., asking questions, directing behaviors, and facilitating topic maintenance (Corsaro, 1979; Kaye and Charney, 1981; Martlew; 1980; Wanska and Bedrosian, 1985). Mothers talk about what they believe the child intends, thus giving the child considerable control over what is talked about (Chapman, 1981; Cross, 1977; Kaye and Charney, 1981; Martlew, 1980). The pattern that emerges is that of mothers controlling and maintaining the conversational structure through talking about interests introduced by the child. In addition, maintaining the conversational structure involves the use of semantically contingent speech, that speech which is immediately reAddress correspondence to Mary June Moseley, Ph.D., Associate of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC 20002-3625. 0 1990 by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
Professor, Department 800 Florida Ave. N.E.,
187 0021.99241901$3.50
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lated to the preceding utterance. Mothers’ use of this type of speech has consistently been shown to help facilitate language development (Barnes, Gutfreund, Satterly, and Wells, 1983; Chapman, 1981; Cross, 1977; Snow, 1984). As much as 75% of mothers’ utterances are semantically contingent. Thus, the majority of expressions the child hears from the mother encode events that are perceptually, cognitively, and semantically available and salient to the child. Semantic contingency may help establish joint attention and joint action, which help lead the child into language through the negotiation of shared meaning. By understanding the social rules for participation in dialogue, the child can learn to negotiate shared meaning (Bruner, 1975; Ninio and Bruner, 1978). The child, also, has a role in maintaining the conversational structure. Young children, between two and three years of age, are able to add new information relative to the topic of the prior utterance (Bloom, Rocissano, and Hood, 1976). They are able to make appropriate responses, and appropriate repairs (Lund and Duchan, 1988). There is little information available concerning the conversational interaction between mothers and their language-delayed children. Researchers studying language-delayed child/mother dyads have made the following observations concerning ongoing dialogues: the language-delayed children and mothers Friel-Patti (1977): “When talked, communication broke down. Much was said by both parties, but information exchange was neither intended nor achieved. The overall impression was of parallel monologues rather than dialogues.” Wulbert, Inglis, Kriegsmann. and Mills (1975): “There was little dynamic verbal interchange.” Lasky and Klopp (1982): “The mothers and their normal children seemed to be more together, more synchronized in this language learning game.”
Additionally, other conversational analyses reported in the literature on mothers and their language-delayed children suggest a breakdown in the social interaction of these particular dyads. Language-delayed children did not respond, try to answer questions, or follow directions when their mothers initiated conversation (Wulbert et al., 1975). Conversely, mothers of language-delayed children did not respond to their children as often as mothers of children with normal language (Smith, 1978). Lack of responsitivity of the child could impede the language learning process. The inability of a mother to interpret the intention or to elicit an expected response from her child might encourage her to limit her communicative interaction with the child. A breakdown in effective speakerlistener role exchange therefore may provide a limited model to the child for learning the social rules necessary for dialogue. Negotiation of shared meaning thus could be limited.
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Lack of definition and information on aspects of discourse makes it difficult to get a clear picture of how language-delayed child-mother dyads communicate. Patterns of topic contingency, types of responses, and repairs are undefined with the language-delayed child-mother dyads. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the discourse of mothers and their children in dyads where the child was language delayed. Emphasis was placed on conversational interactions in terms of who in the dyad initiated, how the initiations were made, how the pattern of dialogue was controlled by the participants, and what kinds of response patterns were present. Specific questions asked were the following: 1. How do mothers and their children open conversations? 2. How do mothers and their children respond to each other in conversation? 3. How is the flow of dialogue affected by the conversational moves of the participants? METHOD Subjects Eight mother-child dyads from a mideastern city participated in this study. Four of the children were developing language normally and four were language delayed, as determined by the results of diagnostic procedures used by referring spzch-language pathologists. These children were considered language delayed if the major problem they exhibited was inadequate sentence structure and vocabulary. They had no known anatomical or physiological problems. They ranged in chronological age from 2.10 to 3.11 years (x age = 3.4 years). The normal children ranged in age between 1.10 and 2.0 years (x age = 1.11 years). At the time the study began, the comprehension portion of the Preschool Language Scale (Zimmerman, Steiner, and Pond, 1979), was administered to all children. The eight children in the study demonstrated comprehensive ability at chronological age level or above. The language-delayed and normal children were matched by sex and mean length of utterance (MLU); MLU in morphemes for all children ranged between 1.3 and 3.3; in words between 1.3 and 3.0. Procedure Data Collection. Each dyad was videotaped through a one-way mirror in a 15minute free-play situation. The setting was a playroom in a speechlanguage clinic, equipped with toys suitable for preschool children. Mothers were also asked to bring toys from home, including books, pictures, favorite play animals or dolls, and games. The mothers were asked to play with the child as naturally as possible.
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Data Analysis. Transcripts of verbal behaviors, along with contextual notes, were prepared using traditional orthography and phonetic notation when necessary to clarify. Verbal behaviors were classified as utterances functioning to initiate conversation (opening moves) and continue conversation (response moves). Opening and response moves were converted to percentages and both groups of mothers and children were compared. In addition, the request types used by the mothers were compared. See the Appendix for definitions of verbal behaviors. Reliability and Statistical Analysis. An observer was given one hour of training in the above coding procedures. She classified four minutes (randomly selected) from the eight videotapes. Percentage of agreement on the coding procedures for the observer and the principal investigator for all categories was 84%; intrarater reliability was 89%. The Walsh test (Siegel, 1956), a nonparametric statistical test for related measures, was used to assess group tendencies. Frequencies were converted to percentages so that relative usage of utterance types could be evaluated.
RESULTS Opening Moves: Mothers. The opening moves classified as initiation (which served to introduce a new topic in declarative form) showed a significant difference between mothers (d, > 0, N = 4, p < ,125). (See Table 1.) The mothers of language-delaytid children initiated relatively more than did mothers of normal children. All mothers in the study used invitations as the major way of opening a conversation with their children. Neither group used interpolations (inappropriate intrusions into the conversation), and the starts (which referred back to a previous topic) were used in essentially the same proportion by both groups of mothers. Invitations were the most frequently used utterance types of both groups of mothers and the most frequent opening move. These particular utterances were divided into five specific request categories and analyzed to determine whether differences existed between the groups of mothers on type of invitation. (See the Appendix for definitions.) Table 2 shows the results of this analysis. No significant differences were found in any of the request categories. The mothers of language-delayed children, however, tended to use more requests for action, requests for clarification, and conversational requests, whereas the mothers of normal children tended to use more requests for information (wh and yes/no). Both groups of mothers used more yes/no requests than any other type of request. Opening Moves: Children. Examination of the opening moves of the children showed three significant differences between groups: invite (dl > 0, N = 4, p < .125), initiate (d, < 0, N = 4, p < .I23 and interpolate
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Table 1. Mean Frequency (F) and Percentage (%) in Each Category Opening, Response, and Doubles Moves of Mothers Mothers of language-delayed children Moves Opening Invite Initiate Interpolate Start
Mothers of normal children %
F
of
F
%
114 16 0 9
83 11” 0 6
108 11 0 8
84 9” 0 8
Response Expand Extend Repeat Continue Yes/no Answer Acknowledge Correct
9 7 17 47 6 4 34 9
7
6 14” 35 5” 3” 25” 7”
14 12 21 43 1 20 2
13 11 19” 37 I” 1” 17” 2”
Doubles
13
5
18
8
1
(d4 < 0, N = 4, p < .125). Table 3 shows the results. The languagedelayed children used relatively more invitations than did the normal chil-
dren, but they used proportionately fewer initiations and interpolations than did the normal children. There was no significant difference between groups in the start category. The most common opening move used by the language-delayed children was invitation, whereas the normal children most often opened with initiations. Table 2. Mean Frequency
(F) and Percentage (%) of Request Types (R) of Mothers of Language-Delayed and Normal Children Mothers of language-delayed children Request types R-action R-information/wh R-information/yes/no R-clarification R-conversational
Mothers of normal children
F
%
F
%
20 21 35 31 8
18 19 29 28
13 35 31 24 5
11 30 31 23 4
7
M.
Table 3. Opening,
Mean Frequency (F) and Percentage (5%)in Each Category Response,
and Doubles
Moves
Normal children
children Moves
Opening Invite Initiate Interpolate Start Response Expand Extend Repeat Continue Yes/no Answer Acknowledge Correct
“p
0, N = 4, p < .125); answer (d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125); acknowledge (d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125); correct (d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125). (See Table 1.) The mothers of language-delayed children repeated what their children said relatively less often than the mothers of normal children. The mothers of the language-delayed children used significantly more of the following responses: yes/no, answers, acknowledgments, corrections. The most frequently used response type of both groups of mothers was that of continue. Use of the continue response indicated continuation of topic discussion without grammatical similarity to the preceding utterance. Expansions and extensions were other categories which also indicated topic continuance but with grammatical similarity. None of the three categories showed significant differences in the relative usage by mothers in either group. Doubles (those moves that served both an opening and response function) were used by the mothers of language-delayed children slighty less often than by the mothers of normal children, although this difference was not significant. The continue categoric, along with expand, extend, and repeat demonstrated a topic continuity by being able to sustain a theme. The four
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70% 60%
10% 0%
Sustaining
Non-Sustaining
Type of Responses m Sustaining
* expand.
extend,
Mothers-Lang repeat.
Del Ch
Mothers-Normal
Ch
continue
Figure 1. Sustaining and nonsustaining and normal children.
responses
by mothers of language-delayed
categories (yes/no, answer, acknowledgment, correct) appeared to reflect a social turn-taking function but were nonsustaining of topic. Yes/no and answers provided contingent responses to an opening move, demonstrating an effective speaker-listener exchange. Grammatically, they were l2 words and did not provide an advanced model of sentence structure. Yes/no and acknowledgments did not provide semantic information, but served a turn-taking function. Answers, although they may have provided new semantic information, were limited to 1-2 words. Corrections served to add new semantic information, but did not sustain a topic. When summarizing the response moves as sustaining or nonsustaining of a topic, an important pattern emerges. Figure 1 shows the pattern of response utterances used by the mothers to sustain conversation. Seventy-nine percent of the utterances of the mothers of normal children sustained the conversation, while 21% were nonsustaining. Sixty percent of the utterances of the mothers of language-delayed children were sustaining and 40% were nonsustaining. The differences were not significant. The mothers of both groups preferred sustaining utterances to those that did not sustain conversation. However, the mothers of normal children used about four times as many sustaining utterances as nonsustaining, whereas the mothers of language-delayed children used only one-third more.
M. J. MOSELEY
100% 90% 80% 70%
59%
58%
60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Sustaining
Non-Sustaining
Type m Sustaining
Figure
- exga”d.
extand.
2. Sustaining
repeat.
Language
of Responses
Delayed
cont,nue
and nonsustaining
m
Nan-Sustaining
responses
Normal - Answer.
Children yes/no.
acknowledge.
by language-delayed
and
correct
nor-
mal children.
Response Moves: Children. All of the children’s responses were more alike than different. (See Table 3.) The only significant differences between groups was in the category of repeat (d4 < 0, N = 4, p < .125). The normal children repeated relatively more often than did the languagedelayed children. Although no significant differences between groups were found in the relative usage of the other categories, the languagedelayed children tended to use fewer expansions, continued topic less often, and answered less often than their normal counterparts. The language-delayed children used more extensions, more yes/no responses, more acknowledgments, and more corrections than the normal children. The language-delayed children used yes/no responses more than any other types of responses, whereas the normal children used repetitions more often. Neither group of children used many doubles. The patterns of the children for sustaining and nonsustaining utterances are demonstrated in Figure 2. The normal children used 58% sustaining utterances and 42% nonsustaining. The language-delayed children used 41% sustaining and 59% nonsustaining. These differences were not significant; however, the normal children showed a pattern similar to that of their mothers; i.c., a preference for sustaining conversation more often than not. The language-delayed children showed the opposite pattern. They chose to use nonsustaining utterances more often.
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100% 81%
90%
/
/I
80% 70% 80% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Clarification
Information
Rea
Req
Type of Responses m Figure 3. Response clarification
Language Delayed
of children
to their
m
mothers’
Normel Children requests
for information
and
Response of Children to Mothers’ invitations. When the normal children responded appropriately to their mothers, 81% of their responses followed a request for information and 19% of their responses came after a request for clarification. When the language-delayed children responded, 59% of their responses came after a request for information and 42% of their responses followed a clarification request. Both of these differences were significant (d4 < 0, N = 4, p < .125 for responses to clarification requests; d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125 for response to information requests). (See Figure 3.)
DISCUSSION In the past, several researchers (Friel-Patti, 1977; Latsky and Klopp, 1982; Wulbert et al., 1975) indicated that the language-delayed childmother dyads did not appear to be functioning as well as the normal childmother dyads. They suggested less cohesiveness between mothers and children, but these differences were not defined. The patterns of conversational moves revealed in this study shed some light on the ways in which the language-delayed child-mother dyads function differently from the normal child-mother dyads. All of the children in the study controlled the topic by initiating more often than their mothers. This finding is consistent with the expectation
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that “what is talked about” (the topic) comes from the child. However, the proportion of use of initiations by the normal children was twice that of the language-delayed children in the same about of time. The languagedelayed children tended to open conversations by inviting a turn from their mothers more often than determining the topic. In contrast, the mothers of the language-delayed children initiated more often than the mothers of normal children. Conti-Ramsden and Friel-Patti (1983) found a similar pattern with mothers of language-delayed children. One may speculate that the mothers of the language-delayed children attempted to initiate a conversational topic because their children did not. These differences in the use of opening moves reflected different conversational control patterns between groups. The mothers of normal children controlled the turn-taking aspects of the conversation through questioning proportionately more often than their children whereas the language-delayed child-mother dyads did not show this pattern. In addition, the language-delayed children used proportionately more invitations than did the normal children. A pattern of inviting by both parties in a dyad would not lead to a cohesive exchange of information and could make discussion on a topic difficult. Mothers’ achievement of control through using invitations more often than their children provides a model for turn-taking which, in turn, provides the structure for negotiating shared meaning (Snow, 1981). Therefore, the lack of clearly defined control structure may contribute to difficulty in sharing context. It is possible to speculate why the turn-taking structure of the languagedelayed children and their mothers was different. Requests may be asked with few words and the same linguistic form may be used over and over in different contexts. The language-delayed children used requests such as “where?,” “that?,” “right here?,” repeatedly. Children with limited syntactic ability and vocabulary may choose such simple request forms because they lack the linguistic knowledge to use longer and more diverse forms. In addition, requests lead to the use of such responses as yes/no and answers. For example, when the child requested “that?,” the mothers responded by either naming an object (“cootie.” “eyes”) or confirming (“urn-hmm,” ” yeah”). The mothers’ high use of these types of moves may reflect the constraints of the high use of invitations by their children. The language-delayed children may, also, have used more requests because topic initiation was difficult for them. The initiation of topic would reflect the semantic notions and vocabulary of the children. The languagedelayed children used initiations less than the normal children. Perhaps they do not initiate because they neither know what to talk about nor verbally express new topics easily. This leads the children to difficulty making their intentions known to their mothers. The mothers, therefore, found it necessary to clarify their children’s intentions more often than the mothers of normal children.
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The pattern of the response moves further defined some of the differences in the language-delayed and normal child-mother dyads. Response moves were contingent on the opening moves in their immediate or continued use of what had been said. Sustaining utterances are capable of continuing a topic exchange over several turns, as demonstrated by the following example from the transcript of a normally developing child: [Child pulls pieces of toy out of box.] c. There some red ones. There some red ones. m. The red ones. c. Those are the red ones. [C points to pieces in the box.] m. Those are the red ones. That’s right. What else is in there? In this example, the child initiates, repeats, mother repeats, child expands, mother repeats, acknowledges, and then invites again. The conversation has been sustained through two turns. In the following example, from the transcript of a language-delayed child, nonsustaining utterances are used:
[Child points to the blocks m. c. m. c.
m. c. m. c.
on top of a pile of blocks.] You’re puttin ‘em on the bridge pretty good, huh? Yeah [c. continues to stack blocks side by side.] Gonna line ‘em up like cars? Yeah, mom. [c. puts blocks on pile until there is no room left for another.] N‘ more [c. shakes head left to right.] Can’t fit no more? Uh-Uh [c. shakes head left to right.] You can put some on top. Yeah.
The participants in the above exchange are interacting verbally. The mother, however, appears to be carrying on a monologue while the child takes a turn by acknowledging and using yes/no responses. The child is not involved in adding content to the conversation. Initiations by the children led to the mothers’ use of conversation-sustaining moves. The mothers of the language-delayed children did not have as many opportunities to use conversation-sustaining moves because their children initiated less than the normal children. The mother’s use of utterances that sustain conversation provides the child with new semantic and grammatical information, which, in turn, provides the child with knowledge of the structure of language and of the world in which he lives.
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The child’s use of these types of utterances gives him an opportunity to express his knowledge and perception of the world. In addition, the language-delayed child-mother dyads were skilled at the kind of responses that demonstrated social responsivity. Perhaps these dyads use more interactive types of utterances because they have had more experience conversing with each other. (The language-delayed children were older chronologically.) The mothers were providing this type of model and the children were using it. The result was considerable verbal interaction, but with few words and minimal content. A conversational interaction was established in which the social aspects appeared to overshadow the information-bearing aspects. Perhaps the pattern of interactive responses continues because both participants in the dyad have experienced difficulty sharing information, thus rely on nonsustaining utterances in order to talk. These findings suggest that some aspects of pragmatic/conversational ability likely develop independently of semantic and linguistic development. The way clarification requests were used by the mothers added additional insight into the dyadic interaction. The mothers of the normally developing children used doubles as clarification requests. This appeared to be a strategy for commenting and returning the turn to the child. The following two examples from a normally developing child are representative of mothers’ clarification and exchange of turns with their children: E.rampfe I. [m. and c. are looking picture in book.]
at pictures
in a book.
m. points
c. Happy birthday. m. Happy birthday? How do you sing it? Sing it. c. Happy birthday to Carl. m. To Carl‘?
Example
2.
m. What’s this? [m. points to picture in book.] c. Sucker. m. A sucker? Purple sucker, hmmmm. [m. turns page.] c. Oh, popscicle. [c. turns page back, touches “sucker.“] m. Popscicle? c. Under there [c. points to same picture.] Boy ha a popscicle. m. The boy has a popscicle.
same
picture
he called
to
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The requests “how do you sing it?” and “what’s this?” were not clarification requests but the others were. Carl’s mother did not appear to expect Carl to answer her clarification requests and thus used these requests as a place marker. These types of requests were described also by Corsaro (1977) as place markers. This mother appeared to understand what her child said and used her turn to add information and continue a speaker-listener exchange. The clarification requests of the mothers of the language-delayed children took a different form. The following example is from Hal’s transcript: [c. and m. are putting a cootie bug together. The legs fall off the bug in the child’s hand.] m. Uh-oh his legs are fallin’ out. [m. reaches for leg.] c. Me tell that. Me tell that girl that. [c. points toward door.] m. You’re gonna tell her what? c. Help me. Help me do that. m. To help you do that? c. Yeah. And mommy, no. [c. takes piece apart and puts it in box.] m. And I’m not going to? c. Don’t make it. Mommy, no. m. You don’t like me to help you? c. [Shakes head no.]
Hal’s mother appears to be using clarification requests to determine who Hal is talking about and what he is going to tell her. The only request that served as a place marker was “to help you do that?” There is little opportunity to extend the ideas expressed by the child because she needs to determine what the child is trying to communicate. The information exchange in this dyad therefore was slower because Hal and his mother tried to clear up misunderstandings. Their dialogue thus was more “labored” than that of Carl and his mother. CONCLUSIONS Previous researchers indicated that language-delayed child-mother dyads did not intend or achieve information exchange (Friel-Patti, 1977) and were less synchronized than normal child-mother dyads (Lasky and Klopp, 1982). In this study, all mothers demonstrated the desire to exchange information by asking informational questions, sustaining topic initiation by the child, and letting the child determine what is talked about. However, when information was shared in the language-delayed child-
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mother dyads, information was more difficult to achieve. The mothers had more difficulty understanding their children’s intentions, fewer opportunities to sustain initiations, and less control of the turn-taking. They therefore provided a different setting for shared meaning when compared to mothers in the normal child-mother dyads, thus leading to the impression of lack of synchrony between mother and child. The mothers indeed provided a different verbal environment, but the types of differences are explained, at least in part, by the linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic abilities of their children. The author wishes to thank Richard Klich and John Panagos for their advice, support on this research, and Fred Brandt for preparation of the graphics.
insight,
and
APPENDIX I. Opening move categories: A. Invite. The speaker deliberately invites a response. This may take the form of a question, an imperative, a clarification question, or question attentionals. Example: “That one’s empty?” or “Put it there.” B. Initiate. The speaker introduces a new topic in declarative form. Example: “That’s an egg.” C. Interpolate. The speaker inappropriately intrudes into the conversation with an irrelevant topic. Most frequently this takes the form of not answering the preceding question. Example: Mother (m). Ya gonna sit down? Child (c). There’s the animal. D. Start. The speaker refers back to a previous topic. II. Response move categories. A. Expand. An utterance in which the speaker expands the previous utterance to a new syntactic equivalent without adding semantic information. Example: c. Bye-bye. m. You’re going bye-bye. B. Extend. An utterance in which the speaker, in addition to expanding the previous utterance, adds new semantic information, Example: c. There’s a dog. [Points to a picture in book.] m. There’s the dog with seaweed all over. C. Repeat. An utterance in which the speaker repeats exactly, or in part, one of the preceding utterances. Example: c. More cars. m. More cars.
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D. Continue. Utterances that are not expansions, extensions, or repetitions, which continue the discussion about a certain topic. Example: [m. and c. are working a puzzle of a choir.] c. Where? [Holds up a piece of the puzzle.] m. Well, let’s put these on the bottom first. That’s part of his choir robe. E. Correct. Utterances in which the semantic or phonological content is corrected. Example: [m. and c. are playing with cootie bug.] c. There leg. m. Those are eyes. F. Answer. Brief, l-2 word responses, contingent on the previous speaker’s utterance. Example: m. What is that? c. Tractor. G. Yes/no response. A simple yes or no response. Example: m. Does Abe want a book? c. No. H. Acknowledge. Brief remarks acknowledging the previous utterance. They further function to indicate a change of speaker and keep the conversation going. Example: c. I want bear m. Okay. or m. That’s pink. c. Yeah. III. Utterances that fell into both opening and response categories were coded as doubles. Example: c. Sweep m. You ran a sweeper didn’t you? Response move-extend Opening move-invite IV. Request types used by mothers. A. Request for action; verbal compliance not necessary. Example: m. Put it right there. B. Request for information: wh. Wh question asked to demonstrate some bit of knowledge. Example: m. What’s this? or How many legs are on him? C. Request for information: yes/no. Example: m. Does Abe want a block? D. Request for clarification. Seeks clarification of a prior utterance. Example:
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E.
c. Me play blocks. m. Oh, you’re going to play with the blocks‘? Purely conversational questions. Response to child that not usually require a reply even in adult conversation. ample :
c. Some m.
How
does Ex-
legs. bout that?
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M., Satterly, D., and Wells, G. (1983). Characteristics of predict children’s language development. J. Child Lang.
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M. (1980). Mother’s control strategies J. Psycholinguist. Res. 9~327-347.
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Smith, S. (1978). Mother-child interaction: Verbal and nonverbal differences relating to developmental language level. Unpublished paper, Ohio: Kent State University. Snow, C. E. (1981). Research in mother-child interactions: implications for language disorders. Short course presented to the Ohio Speech and Hearing Association, Cincinnati, Ohio. Snow, C. E. (1984). Parent-child interaction and the development of communicative ability. In Schiefelbusch, R. L., and Picker, J. (eds.). The Acquisition ofCommunicative Competence, pp. 69-107. Baltimore: University Park Press. Wanska, S. K., and Bedrosian, J. L. (1985). Conversational structure and topic performance in mother-child interaction. J. Speech Hear. Res. 28:579-584. Wulbert, M. Inglis, S., Kriegsmann, E., and Mills, B. (1975). Language delay and associated mother-child interactions. Dev. Psychol. 11:61-70. Zimmerman, I. L., Steiner, V. G., and Pond, R. E. (1979). Preschool Scale. Columbus: Charles E. Merrill.
Language
MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION WITH PRESCHOOL LANGUAGE-DELAYED CHILDREN: STRUCTURING CONVERSATIONS MARY JUNE MOSELEY Gallaudet
University
The discourse skills of mothers and their language-delayed children were examined to determine how participants opened and responded to each other in conversation. Four language-delayed children were matched to four normal children on mean length of utterance. Videotapes were made of the children and their mothers during 15 minutes of play. The types of utterances used to open and respond were similar; however, the flow of dialogue was different for the two groups in the use of invitations, initiations, sustaining, and nonsustaining responses. In the language-delayed child-mother dyads the flow of information through dialogue was interrupted by the necessity to clarify and the lack of definitive control of the turn-taking structure. Conclusions were that there was less shared context between mothers and their language-delayed children. These differences could be explained by the linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic ability of the children.
INTRODUCTION A current theme in the mother-child literature is the development of discourse skills between a mother and her language-learning child. One of the roles of mothers in this process appears to be taking the lead in negotiating shared meaning with young children. Mothers do this by taking a controlling role in dialogue, e.g., asking questions, directing behaviors, and facilitating topic maintenance (Corsaro, 1979; Kaye and Charney, 1981; Martlew; 1980; Wanska and Bedrosian, 1985). Mothers talk about what they believe the child intends, thus giving the child considerable control over what is talked about (Chapman, 1981; Cross, 1977; Kaye and Charney, 1981; Martlew, 1980). The pattern that emerges is that of mothers controlling and maintaining the conversational structure through talking about interests introduced by the child. In addition, maintaining the conversational structure involves the use of semantically contingent speech, that speech which is immediately reAddress correspondence to Mary June Moseley, Ph.D., Associate of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, Gallaudet University, Washington, DC 20002-3625. 0 1990 by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
Professor, Department 800 Florida Ave. N.E.,
187 0021.99241901$3.50
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lated to the preceding utterance. Mothers’ use of this type of speech has consistently been shown to help facilitate language development (Barnes, Gutfreund, Satterly, and Wells, 1983; Chapman, 1981; Cross, 1977; Snow, 1984). As much as 75% of mothers’ utterances are semantically contingent. Thus, the majority of expressions the child hears from the mother encode events that are perceptually, cognitively, and semantically available and salient to the child. Semantic contingency may help establish joint attention and joint action, which help lead the child into language through the negotiation of shared meaning. By understanding the social rules for participation in dialogue, the child can learn to negotiate shared meaning (Bruner, 1975; Ninio and Bruner, 1978). The child, also, has a role in maintaining the conversational structure. Young children, between two and three years of age, are able to add new information relative to the topic of the prior utterance (Bloom, Rocissano, and Hood, 1976). They are able to make appropriate responses, and appropriate repairs (Lund and Duchan, 1988). There is little information available concerning the conversational interaction between mothers and their language-delayed children. Researchers studying language-delayed child/mother dyads have made the following observations concerning ongoing dialogues: the language-delayed children and mothers Friel-Patti (1977): “When talked, communication broke down. Much was said by both parties, but information exchange was neither intended nor achieved. The overall impression was of parallel monologues rather than dialogues.” Wulbert, Inglis, Kriegsmann. and Mills (1975): “There was little dynamic verbal interchange.” Lasky and Klopp (1982): “The mothers and their normal children seemed to be more together, more synchronized in this language learning game.”
Additionally, other conversational analyses reported in the literature on mothers and their language-delayed children suggest a breakdown in the social interaction of these particular dyads. Language-delayed children did not respond, try to answer questions, or follow directions when their mothers initiated conversation (Wulbert et al., 1975). Conversely, mothers of language-delayed children did not respond to their children as often as mothers of children with normal language (Smith, 1978). Lack of responsitivity of the child could impede the language learning process. The inability of a mother to interpret the intention or to elicit an expected response from her child might encourage her to limit her communicative interaction with the child. A breakdown in effective speakerlistener role exchange therefore may provide a limited model to the child for learning the social rules necessary for dialogue. Negotiation of shared meaning thus could be limited.
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Lack of definition and information on aspects of discourse makes it difficult to get a clear picture of how language-delayed child-mother dyads communicate. Patterns of topic contingency, types of responses, and repairs are undefined with the language-delayed child-mother dyads. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to examine the discourse of mothers and their children in dyads where the child was language delayed. Emphasis was placed on conversational interactions in terms of who in the dyad initiated, how the initiations were made, how the pattern of dialogue was controlled by the participants, and what kinds of response patterns were present. Specific questions asked were the following: 1. How do mothers and their children open conversations? 2. How do mothers and their children respond to each other in conversation? 3. How is the flow of dialogue affected by the conversational moves of the participants? METHOD Subjects Eight mother-child dyads from a mideastern city participated in this study. Four of the children were developing language normally and four were language delayed, as determined by the results of diagnostic procedures used by referring spzch-language pathologists. These children were considered language delayed if the major problem they exhibited was inadequate sentence structure and vocabulary. They had no known anatomical or physiological problems. They ranged in chronological age from 2.10 to 3.11 years (x age = 3.4 years). The normal children ranged in age between 1.10 and 2.0 years (x age = 1.11 years). At the time the study began, the comprehension portion of the Preschool Language Scale (Zimmerman, Steiner, and Pond, 1979), was administered to all children. The eight children in the study demonstrated comprehensive ability at chronological age level or above. The language-delayed and normal children were matched by sex and mean length of utterance (MLU); MLU in morphemes for all children ranged between 1.3 and 3.3; in words between 1.3 and 3.0. Procedure Data Collection. Each dyad was videotaped through a one-way mirror in a 15minute free-play situation. The setting was a playroom in a speechlanguage clinic, equipped with toys suitable for preschool children. Mothers were also asked to bring toys from home, including books, pictures, favorite play animals or dolls, and games. The mothers were asked to play with the child as naturally as possible.
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Data Analysis. Transcripts of verbal behaviors, along with contextual notes, were prepared using traditional orthography and phonetic notation when necessary to clarify. Verbal behaviors were classified as utterances functioning to initiate conversation (opening moves) and continue conversation (response moves). Opening and response moves were converted to percentages and both groups of mothers and children were compared. In addition, the request types used by the mothers were compared. See the Appendix for definitions of verbal behaviors. Reliability and Statistical Analysis. An observer was given one hour of training in the above coding procedures. She classified four minutes (randomly selected) from the eight videotapes. Percentage of agreement on the coding procedures for the observer and the principal investigator for all categories was 84%; intrarater reliability was 89%. The Walsh test (Siegel, 1956), a nonparametric statistical test for related measures, was used to assess group tendencies. Frequencies were converted to percentages so that relative usage of utterance types could be evaluated.
RESULTS Opening Moves: Mothers. The opening moves classified as initiation (which served to introduce a new topic in declarative form) showed a significant difference between mothers (d, > 0, N = 4, p < ,125). (See Table 1.) The mothers of language-delaytid children initiated relatively more than did mothers of normal children. All mothers in the study used invitations as the major way of opening a conversation with their children. Neither group used interpolations (inappropriate intrusions into the conversation), and the starts (which referred back to a previous topic) were used in essentially the same proportion by both groups of mothers. Invitations were the most frequently used utterance types of both groups of mothers and the most frequent opening move. These particular utterances were divided into five specific request categories and analyzed to determine whether differences existed between the groups of mothers on type of invitation. (See the Appendix for definitions.) Table 2 shows the results of this analysis. No significant differences were found in any of the request categories. The mothers of language-delayed children, however, tended to use more requests for action, requests for clarification, and conversational requests, whereas the mothers of normal children tended to use more requests for information (wh and yes/no). Both groups of mothers used more yes/no requests than any other type of request. Opening Moves: Children. Examination of the opening moves of the children showed three significant differences between groups: invite (dl > 0, N = 4, p < .125), initiate (d, < 0, N = 4, p < .I23 and interpolate
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Table 1. Mean Frequency (F) and Percentage (%) in Each Category Opening, Response, and Doubles Moves of Mothers Mothers of language-delayed children Moves Opening Invite Initiate Interpolate Start
Mothers of normal children %
F
of
F
%
114 16 0 9
83 11” 0 6
108 11 0 8
84 9” 0 8
Response Expand Extend Repeat Continue Yes/no Answer Acknowledge Correct
9 7 17 47 6 4 34 9
7
6 14” 35 5” 3” 25” 7”
14 12 21 43 1 20 2
13 11 19” 37 I” 1” 17” 2”
Doubles
13
5
18
8
1
(d4 < 0, N = 4, p < .125). Table 3 shows the results. The languagedelayed children used relatively more invitations than did the normal chil-
dren, but they used proportionately fewer initiations and interpolations than did the normal children. There was no significant difference between groups in the start category. The most common opening move used by the language-delayed children was invitation, whereas the normal children most often opened with initiations. Table 2. Mean Frequency
(F) and Percentage (%) of Request Types (R) of Mothers of Language-Delayed and Normal Children Mothers of language-delayed children Request types R-action R-information/wh R-information/yes/no R-clarification R-conversational
Mothers of normal children
F
%
F
%
20 21 35 31 8
18 19 29 28
13 35 31 24 5
11 30 31 23 4
7
M.
Table 3. Opening,
Mean Frequency (F) and Percentage (5%)in Each Category Response,
and Doubles
Moves
Normal children
children Moves
Opening Invite Initiate Interpolate Start Response Expand Extend Repeat Continue Yes/no Answer Acknowledge Correct
“p
0, N = 4, p < .125); answer (d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125); acknowledge (d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125); correct (d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125). (See Table 1.) The mothers of language-delayed children repeated what their children said relatively less often than the mothers of normal children. The mothers of the language-delayed children used significantly more of the following responses: yes/no, answers, acknowledgments, corrections. The most frequently used response type of both groups of mothers was that of continue. Use of the continue response indicated continuation of topic discussion without grammatical similarity to the preceding utterance. Expansions and extensions were other categories which also indicated topic continuance but with grammatical similarity. None of the three categories showed significant differences in the relative usage by mothers in either group. Doubles (those moves that served both an opening and response function) were used by the mothers of language-delayed children slighty less often than by the mothers of normal children, although this difference was not significant. The continue categoric, along with expand, extend, and repeat demonstrated a topic continuity by being able to sustain a theme. The four
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70% 60%
10% 0%
Sustaining
Non-Sustaining
Type of Responses m Sustaining
* expand.
extend,
Mothers-Lang repeat.
Del Ch
Mothers-Normal
Ch
continue
Figure 1. Sustaining and nonsustaining and normal children.
responses
by mothers of language-delayed
categories (yes/no, answer, acknowledgment, correct) appeared to reflect a social turn-taking function but were nonsustaining of topic. Yes/no and answers provided contingent responses to an opening move, demonstrating an effective speaker-listener exchange. Grammatically, they were l2 words and did not provide an advanced model of sentence structure. Yes/no and acknowledgments did not provide semantic information, but served a turn-taking function. Answers, although they may have provided new semantic information, were limited to 1-2 words. Corrections served to add new semantic information, but did not sustain a topic. When summarizing the response moves as sustaining or nonsustaining of a topic, an important pattern emerges. Figure 1 shows the pattern of response utterances used by the mothers to sustain conversation. Seventy-nine percent of the utterances of the mothers of normal children sustained the conversation, while 21% were nonsustaining. Sixty percent of the utterances of the mothers of language-delayed children were sustaining and 40% were nonsustaining. The differences were not significant. The mothers of both groups preferred sustaining utterances to those that did not sustain conversation. However, the mothers of normal children used about four times as many sustaining utterances as nonsustaining, whereas the mothers of language-delayed children used only one-third more.
M. J. MOSELEY
100% 90% 80% 70%
59%
58%
60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Sustaining
Non-Sustaining
Type m Sustaining
Figure
- exga”d.
extand.
2. Sustaining
repeat.
Language
of Responses
Delayed
cont,nue
and nonsustaining
m
Nan-Sustaining
responses
Normal - Answer.
Children yes/no.
acknowledge.
by language-delayed
and
correct
nor-
mal children.
Response Moves: Children. All of the children’s responses were more alike than different. (See Table 3.) The only significant differences between groups was in the category of repeat (d4 < 0, N = 4, p < .125). The normal children repeated relatively more often than did the languagedelayed children. Although no significant differences between groups were found in the relative usage of the other categories, the languagedelayed children tended to use fewer expansions, continued topic less often, and answered less often than their normal counterparts. The language-delayed children used more extensions, more yes/no responses, more acknowledgments, and more corrections than the normal children. The language-delayed children used yes/no responses more than any other types of responses, whereas the normal children used repetitions more often. Neither group of children used many doubles. The patterns of the children for sustaining and nonsustaining utterances are demonstrated in Figure 2. The normal children used 58% sustaining utterances and 42% nonsustaining. The language-delayed children used 41% sustaining and 59% nonsustaining. These differences were not significant; however, the normal children showed a pattern similar to that of their mothers; i.c., a preference for sustaining conversation more often than not. The language-delayed children showed the opposite pattern. They chose to use nonsustaining utterances more often.
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100% 81%
90%
/
/I
80% 70% 80% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Clarification
Information
Rea
Req
Type of Responses m Figure 3. Response clarification
Language Delayed
of children
to their
m
mothers’
Normel Children requests
for information
and
Response of Children to Mothers’ invitations. When the normal children responded appropriately to their mothers, 81% of their responses followed a request for information and 19% of their responses came after a request for clarification. When the language-delayed children responded, 59% of their responses came after a request for information and 42% of their responses followed a clarification request. Both of these differences were significant (d4 < 0, N = 4, p < .125 for responses to clarification requests; d, > 0, N = 4, p < .125 for response to information requests). (See Figure 3.)
DISCUSSION In the past, several researchers (Friel-Patti, 1977; Latsky and Klopp, 1982; Wulbert et al., 1975) indicated that the language-delayed childmother dyads did not appear to be functioning as well as the normal childmother dyads. They suggested less cohesiveness between mothers and children, but these differences were not defined. The patterns of conversational moves revealed in this study shed some light on the ways in which the language-delayed child-mother dyads function differently from the normal child-mother dyads. All of the children in the study controlled the topic by initiating more often than their mothers. This finding is consistent with the expectation
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that “what is talked about” (the topic) comes from the child. However, the proportion of use of initiations by the normal children was twice that of the language-delayed children in the same about of time. The languagedelayed children tended to open conversations by inviting a turn from their mothers more often than determining the topic. In contrast, the mothers of the language-delayed children initiated more often than the mothers of normal children. Conti-Ramsden and Friel-Patti (1983) found a similar pattern with mothers of language-delayed children. One may speculate that the mothers of the language-delayed children attempted to initiate a conversational topic because their children did not. These differences in the use of opening moves reflected different conversational control patterns between groups. The mothers of normal children controlled the turn-taking aspects of the conversation through questioning proportionately more often than their children whereas the language-delayed child-mother dyads did not show this pattern. In addition, the language-delayed children used proportionately more invitations than did the normal children. A pattern of inviting by both parties in a dyad would not lead to a cohesive exchange of information and could make discussion on a topic difficult. Mothers’ achievement of control through using invitations more often than their children provides a model for turn-taking which, in turn, provides the structure for negotiating shared meaning (Snow, 1981). Therefore, the lack of clearly defined control structure may contribute to difficulty in sharing context. It is possible to speculate why the turn-taking structure of the languagedelayed children and their mothers was different. Requests may be asked with few words and the same linguistic form may be used over and over in different contexts. The language-delayed children used requests such as “where?,” “that?,” “right here?,” repeatedly. Children with limited syntactic ability and vocabulary may choose such simple request forms because they lack the linguistic knowledge to use longer and more diverse forms. In addition, requests lead to the use of such responses as yes/no and answers. For example, when the child requested “that?,” the mothers responded by either naming an object (“cootie.” “eyes”) or confirming (“urn-hmm,” ” yeah”). The mothers’ high use of these types of moves may reflect the constraints of the high use of invitations by their children. The language-delayed children may, also, have used more requests because topic initiation was difficult for them. The initiation of topic would reflect the semantic notions and vocabulary of the children. The languagedelayed children used initiations less than the normal children. Perhaps they do not initiate because they neither know what to talk about nor verbally express new topics easily. This leads the children to difficulty making their intentions known to their mothers. The mothers, therefore, found it necessary to clarify their children’s intentions more often than the mothers of normal children.
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The pattern of the response moves further defined some of the differences in the language-delayed and normal child-mother dyads. Response moves were contingent on the opening moves in their immediate or continued use of what had been said. Sustaining utterances are capable of continuing a topic exchange over several turns, as demonstrated by the following example from the transcript of a normally developing child: [Child pulls pieces of toy out of box.] c. There some red ones. There some red ones. m. The red ones. c. Those are the red ones. [C points to pieces in the box.] m. Those are the red ones. That’s right. What else is in there? In this example, the child initiates, repeats, mother repeats, child expands, mother repeats, acknowledges, and then invites again. The conversation has been sustained through two turns. In the following example, from the transcript of a language-delayed child, nonsustaining utterances are used:
[Child points to the blocks m. c. m. c.
m. c. m. c.
on top of a pile of blocks.] You’re puttin ‘em on the bridge pretty good, huh? Yeah [c. continues to stack blocks side by side.] Gonna line ‘em up like cars? Yeah, mom. [c. puts blocks on pile until there is no room left for another.] N‘ more [c. shakes head left to right.] Can’t fit no more? Uh-Uh [c. shakes head left to right.] You can put some on top. Yeah.
The participants in the above exchange are interacting verbally. The mother, however, appears to be carrying on a monologue while the child takes a turn by acknowledging and using yes/no responses. The child is not involved in adding content to the conversation. Initiations by the children led to the mothers’ use of conversation-sustaining moves. The mothers of the language-delayed children did not have as many opportunities to use conversation-sustaining moves because their children initiated less than the normal children. The mother’s use of utterances that sustain conversation provides the child with new semantic and grammatical information, which, in turn, provides the child with knowledge of the structure of language and of the world in which he lives.
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The child’s use of these types of utterances gives him an opportunity to express his knowledge and perception of the world. In addition, the language-delayed child-mother dyads were skilled at the kind of responses that demonstrated social responsivity. Perhaps these dyads use more interactive types of utterances because they have had more experience conversing with each other. (The language-delayed children were older chronologically.) The mothers were providing this type of model and the children were using it. The result was considerable verbal interaction, but with few words and minimal content. A conversational interaction was established in which the social aspects appeared to overshadow the information-bearing aspects. Perhaps the pattern of interactive responses continues because both participants in the dyad have experienced difficulty sharing information, thus rely on nonsustaining utterances in order to talk. These findings suggest that some aspects of pragmatic/conversational ability likely develop independently of semantic and linguistic development. The way clarification requests were used by the mothers added additional insight into the dyadic interaction. The mothers of the normally developing children used doubles as clarification requests. This appeared to be a strategy for commenting and returning the turn to the child. The following two examples from a normally developing child are representative of mothers’ clarification and exchange of turns with their children: E.rampfe I. [m. and c. are looking picture in book.]
at pictures
in a book.
m. points
c. Happy birthday. m. Happy birthday? How do you sing it? Sing it. c. Happy birthday to Carl. m. To Carl‘?
Example
2.
m. What’s this? [m. points to picture in book.] c. Sucker. m. A sucker? Purple sucker, hmmmm. [m. turns page.] c. Oh, popscicle. [c. turns page back, touches “sucker.“] m. Popscicle? c. Under there [c. points to same picture.] Boy ha a popscicle. m. The boy has a popscicle.
same
picture
he called
to
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The requests “how do you sing it?” and “what’s this?” were not clarification requests but the others were. Carl’s mother did not appear to expect Carl to answer her clarification requests and thus used these requests as a place marker. These types of requests were described also by Corsaro (1977) as place markers. This mother appeared to understand what her child said and used her turn to add information and continue a speaker-listener exchange. The clarification requests of the mothers of the language-delayed children took a different form. The following example is from Hal’s transcript: [c. and m. are putting a cootie bug together. The legs fall off the bug in the child’s hand.] m. Uh-oh his legs are fallin’ out. [m. reaches for leg.] c. Me tell that. Me tell that girl that. [c. points toward door.] m. You’re gonna tell her what? c. Help me. Help me do that. m. To help you do that? c. Yeah. And mommy, no. [c. takes piece apart and puts it in box.] m. And I’m not going to? c. Don’t make it. Mommy, no. m. You don’t like me to help you? c. [Shakes head no.]
Hal’s mother appears to be using clarification requests to determine who Hal is talking about and what he is going to tell her. The only request that served as a place marker was “to help you do that?” There is little opportunity to extend the ideas expressed by the child because she needs to determine what the child is trying to communicate. The information exchange in this dyad therefore was slower because Hal and his mother tried to clear up misunderstandings. Their dialogue thus was more “labored” than that of Carl and his mother. CONCLUSIONS Previous researchers indicated that language-delayed child-mother dyads did not intend or achieve information exchange (Friel-Patti, 1977) and were less synchronized than normal child-mother dyads (Lasky and Klopp, 1982). In this study, all mothers demonstrated the desire to exchange information by asking informational questions, sustaining topic initiation by the child, and letting the child determine what is talked about. However, when information was shared in the language-delayed child-
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mother dyads, information was more difficult to achieve. The mothers had more difficulty understanding their children’s intentions, fewer opportunities to sustain initiations, and less control of the turn-taking. They therefore provided a different setting for shared meaning when compared to mothers in the normal child-mother dyads, thus leading to the impression of lack of synchrony between mother and child. The mothers indeed provided a different verbal environment, but the types of differences are explained, at least in part, by the linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic abilities of their children. The author wishes to thank Richard Klich and John Panagos for their advice, support on this research, and Fred Brandt for preparation of the graphics.
insight,
and
APPENDIX I. Opening move categories: A. Invite. The speaker deliberately invites a response. This may take the form of a question, an imperative, a clarification question, or question attentionals. Example: “That one’s empty?” or “Put it there.” B. Initiate. The speaker introduces a new topic in declarative form. Example: “That’s an egg.” C. Interpolate. The speaker inappropriately intrudes into the conversation with an irrelevant topic. Most frequently this takes the form of not answering the preceding question. Example: Mother (m). Ya gonna sit down? Child (c). There’s the animal. D. Start. The speaker refers back to a previous topic. II. Response move categories. A. Expand. An utterance in which the speaker expands the previous utterance to a new syntactic equivalent without adding semantic information. Example: c. Bye-bye. m. You’re going bye-bye. B. Extend. An utterance in which the speaker, in addition to expanding the previous utterance, adds new semantic information, Example: c. There’s a dog. [Points to a picture in book.] m. There’s the dog with seaweed all over. C. Repeat. An utterance in which the speaker repeats exactly, or in part, one of the preceding utterances. Example: c. More cars. m. More cars.
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D. Continue. Utterances that are not expansions, extensions, or repetitions, which continue the discussion about a certain topic. Example: [m. and c. are working a puzzle of a choir.] c. Where? [Holds up a piece of the puzzle.] m. Well, let’s put these on the bottom first. That’s part of his choir robe. E. Correct. Utterances in which the semantic or phonological content is corrected. Example: [m. and c. are playing with cootie bug.] c. There leg. m. Those are eyes. F. Answer. Brief, l-2 word responses, contingent on the previous speaker’s utterance. Example: m. What is that? c. Tractor. G. Yes/no response. A simple yes or no response. Example: m. Does Abe want a book? c. No. H. Acknowledge. Brief remarks acknowledging the previous utterance. They further function to indicate a change of speaker and keep the conversation going. Example: c. I want bear m. Okay. or m. That’s pink. c. Yeah. III. Utterances that fell into both opening and response categories were coded as doubles. Example: c. Sweep m. You ran a sweeper didn’t you? Response move-extend Opening move-invite IV. Request types used by mothers. A. Request for action; verbal compliance not necessary. Example: m. Put it right there. B. Request for information: wh. Wh question asked to demonstrate some bit of knowledge. Example: m. What’s this? or How many legs are on him? C. Request for information: yes/no. Example: m. Does Abe want a block? D. Request for clarification. Seeks clarification of a prior utterance. Example:
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E.
c. Me play blocks. m. Oh, you’re going to play with the blocks‘? Purely conversational questions. Response to child that not usually require a reply even in adult conversation. ample :
c. Some m.
How
does Ex-
legs. bout that?
REFERENCES Barnes, S., Gutfreund, adult speech which 10:65-84.
M., Satterly, D., and Wells, G. (1983). Characteristics of predict children’s language development. J. Child Lang.
Bloom, L., Rocissano, L., and Hood, L. (1976). Adult-child discourse: Developmental interaction between information processing and linguistic knowledge. Cognitive Psycho/. 8521-552. Bruner,
J. S. (1975). The ontogenesis
of speech
acts. J. Child Lung.
2:1-19.
Chapman, R. S. (1981). Mother-child interaction in the second year of life. In Schiefelbusch, R. L., and Bricker, D. D. (eds.). Early Language: Acquisition and Intervention. Baltimore: University Park Press. Conti-Ramsden, G., and Friel-Patti, S. (1983). Mothers’ discourse adjustments to language-impaired and non-language-impaired children. J. Speech Heur. Disorders. 48:360-367. Corsaro, W. A. (1977). The clarification request as a feature styles with young children. Lang. Sot. 6: 183-207. Corsaro, W. A. (1979). Sociolinguistic Ochs, E., and Schieffelin, B. (eds.), Academic Press.
of adult interactive
patterns in adult-child interaction. In Developmental Pragmmtics. New York:
Cross, T. G. (1977). Mothers’ speech adjustments: The contributions of selected child listener variables. In Snow, C. E.. and Ferguson, C. (eds.), Tulking to Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friel-Patti, S. (1977). Nonverbal-verbal relationships in mother-child dyads with normal and language-delayed children. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Speech and Hearing Association, Chicago, Illinois. Kaye, K., and Charney, R. (1981). Conversational and children. J. Child Lan,q. 8:35-49.
asymmetry
between
Lasky, E., and Klopp, K. (1982). Parent-child interactions in normal guage-disordered children. J. Speech Heur. Disord. 4717-18. Lund, N. H., and Duchan, J. F. (1988). Assessing Children’s tlcralistic Contexts. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall. Martlew. sation.
M. (1980). Mother’s control strategies J. Psycholinguist. Res. 9~327-347.
in dyadic
Language
mother/child
mothers and lanin Nuconver-
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Ninio, A., and Bruner, J. (1978). The achievement J. Child Lung. 5:1-15. Siegel, S. (1956). Nonparametric York: McGraw-Hill.
Statistics
and antecedents
for the Behavioral
of labelling.
Sciences.
New
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