This study explored differences in caregiver-child interactions following children's information-seeking questions. Naturalistic speech from thirty-seven 4-year-olds and their caregivers was used to explore children's information-seeking questions, the caregiver's response, and children's subsequent follow-up. Half of the families were…

Before they are 3;0-3;6, children typically do not engage with peers in focused interaction, although they do with adults. With parents, children interact around the "here-and-now". We hypothesize that young peers do not attempt to establish joint attention to present objects. Using the CHILDES database, we compared attention-directives…

Maternal responsive and directive speech to children at ages 0;10 and 2;0 was investigated by applying a procedure frst introduced by Flynn and Masur (2007) to a new language community (Finnish). The issues examined were consistency and stability over time, and also the role of responsiveness and directiveness in child linguistic development at…

Background: Identifying risk and protective factors for language development informs interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Maternal responsive and intrusive communicative behaviours are associated with language development. Mother-child interaction quality may influence how children use these behaviours in language…

The current study is one of the first to investigate children's perceptions of quality in teacher-child relationships using a narrative measure. It is also one of the first studies to investigate how the child's report is associated with the teacher's report and with an observer's report of quality in teacher-child interactions. Participants…

Background: A trial parent-focused early intervention (PFEI) programme for children with delayed language development is reported in which current research evidence was translated and applied within the constraints of available of clinical resources. The programme, based at a primary school, was run by a speech-language pathologist with…

Examines how any utterance or activity can be opposed in order to better understand the origins of children's disputes. Shows that children analyze others' moves not only verbally but nonverbally as well. Thus, bodily action and presupposition are necessary components in the analysis of how arguments are started. (SED)

The study of relationships among maternal behavior, child language, and location of congenital structural anomalies with 24-month-old children (21 with speech related anomalies (SRA), 45 normal controls, and 13 with non-speech-related anomalies. Mothers of SRA children showed more physical teaching, initiating, and attention management behaviors…

Investigates the use of clauses expressing relational processes by young children interacting in a free play situation and using English as a second language. Concludes that the use of language to explore and express relations in the environment is an important aspect of child-child interaction. (MES)

Shows that among the qualities of interaction present in peer learning are the negotiation of teaching and collaborative roles, attention-focusing, showing and pointing, and informative messages. (FL)

Suggests that young children use their expectations of a context-specific, normal range of pause duration in timing the onset of a turn at speaking. (FL)

Outlines some problems that emerged when speech act theory was applied to the analysis of natural discourse, traces these problems to basic flaws or misconceptions in J. R. Searle's theory, and proposes an alternative view of speech acts within the complex organization of discourse processes. (FL)

Discusses a study of the relationship between context and a mother's speech to her prelinguistic infant and a second phase which involved 48 mothers and their infants. Results are discussed in relation to a hypothesis that assumes that mothers' speech is determined by particular interactive rules operating in the mother-infant dyad. (Author/SED)

Demonstrates through a case study and a participant observation study that siblings interact about television in such a way that the form and content of their talk creates a learning context. Concludes that, despite concerns about "zombie" viewers, children are not passive, unresponsive recipients of television. (PD)

Explores how the discourse context of metaphorical language supports children's understanding of sociocultural norms. Classroom data are examined to determine how language, situation, and interaction assist in the interpretation of metaphorically used language. (46 references) (Author/CK)