This study investigates a particular behavior in talk-in-interaction that appears to be, at least in its most explicit form, relatively unique to children, that is, the behavior whereby one participant explicitly instructs another participant to say a specific phrase, after which the first participant then supplies a prefashioned response. Rather…

This paper describes how early childhood teachers' incorporation of pauses raises the quality of talk-in-interaction during play-based mathematics activities. Responses of both children and teachers are shown to be more contingent and expansive when conversations include protracted pauses than during interactions in which pauses are largely…

This work explores the use of multimodal communication in a community of expert "World of Warcraft"® players and its impact on politeness, identity, and relationships. Players in the community regularly communicated using three linguistic modes quasi-simultaneously: text chat, voice chat, and face-to-face interaction. Using the…

Studies of the processes by which parents encourage early numerical development in the context of parent-child interactions during routine, culturally relevant activities at home are scarce. The present study was designed to investigate spontaneous exchanges related to numeracy during parent-child interactions in reading and play activities at…

Fourteen mother-child dyads involving preschool children with autism and 14 matched dyads of typically developing children and mothers were observed during free play. Mothers of autistic children directed verbalizations to something within the child's focus of attention as often as other mothers. They directed verbalizations to something not…

Case studies of three kindergarten students with social difficulties illustrate an intervention program emphasizing a sequential peer-entry hierarchy in which children move from low-risk strategies to high-risk strategies and use props to facilitate the production of high-risk verbal statements. Increases were found in use of props and verbal…

This observational study examined 60 mothers' comments during play with their 4- to 8-month-old infants who had been either full-term, preterm well, or preterm sick. Mothers of sick preterm babies engaged in the most overall talking, mothers of full-term babies made the most negative remarks, and mothers of healthy preterm babies made the fewest…

Evaluation of the conversational behavior of 36 children (ages 48-59 months) playing in dyads with 3 different materials (modeling dough, a farm set, and animal puppets) found that each toy elicited the same amount of talking, though there were differences in discourse structure attributable to play materials. (DB)

The amount and intelligibility of spoken language output were evaluated in 15 deaf children (ages 4 to 9 years) during 15 minutes of free play with either their mothers or a hearing peer. Results indicated that significantly more speech was produced during the children's interactions with their mothers. (Author/DB)

Occasions where children oppose each other have been claimed to convey intellectual benefits through their association with justification and resolution. They have been claimed to promote social rejection through their association with aggression. Because it is inconceivable that intellectual benefits imply social costs, either the relation…

This study observed 65 friendship/acquaintance dyads, half of which involved one child with learning problems, among preadolescent children during play. Unlike friendships between children without disabilities, friendships involving a disabled child were marked by limited collaboration and shared decision making, a low level of cooperative play…

This study examined the effect of various intervention contexts on the ability of young children (ages 3 and 4 years) with language impairments to effectively direct communications to a partner and to vary communicative intentions. The six children in the study were either nonverbal or in the early stages of developing verbal communication and all…

Developmental research and educational practice involve conversations between children and adults. The conversational aspects of these situations have rarely been occasions for reflection. Discrepancies between the child's expectations and the adult's intentions can lead to misunderstanding, for example, at school or during a research interview.…

Examines the communicative competence of young children acquiring English and French simultaneously in the home by observing how they used their languages during separate play sessions with monolingual strangers and their bilingual parents. Findings reveal that all of the children made some accommodations linked to the monolingualism of the…

Presents a method of defining cooccurring constellations or "packages" of maternal facial-visual engagement and head or hand stimulation during face-to-face play with an infant. The functional relevance of these packages is documented in case studies of one four-month-old infant playing with his mother and a stranger. (Author/CB)