This study examined developmental change and variation across social context in the quality of children's conversations, with a dual focus on (1) conflict and (2) inner state talk (IST). Each measure was coded as a proportion of total talk, using transcripts from 57 three- to six-year-olds, filmed at home at two time points (12 months apart) in…

Young children's persuasion tactics, and how these reflected attunement to others' mental states, were explored in archived longitudinal samples of transcribed at-home conversations of four children, three to five years old. Over 87,000 utterances were examined to identify conversation "chunks" involving persuasion; 1,307 chunks were then coded…

Given the importance of mutual understanding for constructive conflict resolution, this study investigated the influence of information-sharing on siblings faced with conflicts of interests. Thirty-two sibling dyads (ages 4.5 to 8) participated. Siblings were asked to negotiate the division of five toys between themselves. Half of the pairs first…

Each day for five days, 79 fifth-grade children reported on events that occurred at school and they and their parents described their interactions with each other each evening. Consistent with previous research, it was found that on days when children reported more academic or peer problems during the day at school, they later described more…

The current study has two aims: (1) to examine associations between the emotional content of parent-child past event conversations and two aspects of children's self-concept--moral self and self-esteem; and (2) to examine the degree to which talk about past events is uniquely associated with self-concept when compared with talk about ongoing…

Proposes that vocal communion between infant and caregiver supports infants' language acquisition and connectedness with caregivers. Recommends research to determine whether social behaviors such as joint attention and vocal imitation are functionally related to language learning or are only symptomatic of a survival-centered caregiving…