Examines children's compliance to directives given by their peers, with particular interest in children's success with directives. Examines the roles of status, directive form, and politeness cues. Outlines four instructional objectives for teaching children to develop effective controlling strategies. (JMF)

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)

This report considers some of the expectations, conventions, and strategies relied upon by Anglo children when they are participating in the speech event of storytelling, with particular focus on the children's interweaving of narrational and metanarrational speech. The data were obtained from white middle-class schoolchildren, aged six through…

Describes a pattern of verbal disputing frequently engaged in by children in Hawaii who have some Polynesian ancestry. This pattern, which is characterized by the forceful use of "not!" as an outright contradiction of one speaker by another, is traced from early childhood into adolescence in the context of relationships in which it develops. (EJS)