Tested the fine-tuning hypothesis of language acquisition, which postulates that parents fine-tune their speech to their children's language level, by examining local patterns of interaction within the conversations of three parent-child dyads. The high positive correlations between parent-child dyads for the different interactional patterns…

Assessed language quality of 15 four-year olds with three conversational partners: a center-care teacher, an older child, and a younger child. Data coded included number of turns, utterances, gaps, statements versus questions, contingent responses, and amount of self-talk. Found that children take more turns with an adult but produce fewer…

The term "scaffolding" refers to adult behaviors that support and guide children's participation in activities, including speech events, enabling the children to extend the range of what they are able to do without assistance. A study examined how scaffolding behavior in support of expository discourse differed among preschool teachers in…