Illustrates how children handle conflict and adjust to one another when their goals are incompatible. Found clear developmental trends: with increasing age, children used more compliance-gaining strategies; their compliance-gaining strategies became more adaptive; and their conflict episodes became more complex. (PD)

Same-sex dyads, consisting of a high or low argumentative college student paired with a moderate, argued a controversial topic. Analysis revealed seven dimensions of communication behavior discriminated between high and low argumentatives: flexibility, interest, verbosity, expertise, dynamism, willingness to argue, and argumentative skill. (PD)

Tests further the assumption of previous studies: that students who believe their ratings will be used to reward or punish an instructor report more critical judgments about instructors than those who feel the ratings fulfill a regulation or may even be used by an instructor for self-improvement. (PD)

Describes an experiment designed to investigate the characteristics of speech addressed to children and to determine if they are distinctive enough to be perceived as a special register. Explains how evidence for specialness was found in the judgments of observers exposed to messages addressed to different categories of listeners, including…

Two training experiments were conducted to assess whether teaching grade 3 and 4 children to engage in comparison activity improves their referential communication performance (identifying a particular referent for a listerner) and message appraisal and production. Results demonstrated that comparison training improved childrens' referential…

Presents abbreviated abstracts of selected documents from the 1979-81 issues of "Resources in Education." Covers the following categories: research studies; analysis systems for the classroom; nonverbal communication in the library; nonverbal deception studies; and teaching nonverbal communication. (PD)

The author states that the lecture is a valuable and necessary teaching method when used to help students synthesize information and understand relationships between concepts and to prepare them for discussion and practice. She offers ten suggestions for improving the effectiveness of the lecture. (MF)

Examines a grammar of conversation using three units of analysis: talk acts (statements, questions, agreements, and disagreements); turns at talk; and topic sequences. Rules covering the use of talk acts and definitions of units of analysis provide the basis for propositions about the location of categories of talk acts. (JMF)

Characterizes several types of quiet children and their communication problems. Offers suggestions for classroom teachers on ways to help and avoid hurting these students. (JMF)

The forms and functions of nonverbal gestures accompanying verbal directives in the free play of three children were examined. Results showed that gestures supplement verbal communication and increase in complexity with age, supporting the viewpoint that language develops as a social and cognitive skill. (PMJ)

Argues that television advertising is now the most powerful language in existence. Provides a "TV advertising test" to prove the point and outlines a unit designed to make students aware of the language of television commercials while improving their writing and thinking skills. (FL)

Children learn language by using it in the habitual and repetitive actions of daily life. The question "How do children extend their spoken language competence to writing?" is explored through examples of stories dictated by seven-year-olds. (JN)

Concerns research in the use of cloze tests to measure a particular language skill when a standardized paper-and-pencil test is not an obviously appropriate validating instrument. The conversational cloze test proved to be superior to a written or prose cloze test in measuring the students' oral ability. Statistical tables are given. (Author/PJM)

Discusses effective oral communication as a prime requisite for business management success. Both speaking and listening skills are needed to encourage intercommunication, invite feedback, respond to other opinions, and solicit participation to contribute to the manager's decisions for organizational action. (MF)

Reports on an experiment describing the lexical development of a hearing child with a deaf mother and hearing father. Data confirm previous findings that (1) sign emerges before spoken word, (2) acquisition stages are similar in ASL and spoken English, and (3) the child initially develops one lexical system. (Author/AM)