To the question of whether Chomsky's hypothesized Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in young children is an adequate and feasible model of language acquisition, this paper answers that LAD should be reformulated so as to include semantics; that "informant presentation" rather than "text presentation" is responsible for language…

The authors discuss several studies all of which demonstrate that duration of self-disclosure is a reliable component of the interpersonal process. They review other aspects of self-disclosure including that: (1) the act of revealing is not rewarding per se but can lead to rewards depending on the interpersonal nature of the situation; (2)…

Selected aspects of Kenneth Burke's "dramatistic" model of symbolic interaction were operationalized to describe and compare verbal patterns in transactions between five pairs of friends and five pairs of strangers. Based on Altman and Taylor's social penetration theory, it was predicted that interactants would display verbal patterns unique to…

Sixty kindergarten, 60 second-grade, and 60 fourth-grade students performed several memory tasks under one of six conditions. The conditions differed as to the method of presentation of information. The study was focused on developmental changes in children's use of verbal, nonverbal, and spatial-positional cues for memory. The results, in…

This research is primarily concerned with discovering how children's behavior (in relation to altruistic giving) is affected by the verbal advice and behavioral example of a same-sex model on a television screen. The subjects were a group of 600 children drawn from first through fifth grade. They were placed in a situation in which they could give…

A study of the dynamic organization of content through the sequence of communication behaviors in the classroom attempted to 1) systematically analyze observed and classified communication behaviors of teachers and students in the classroom which relate to content; 2) display the data thus generated so that elements, sequences, and organizations…

Every art and discipline must accept competition as a natural condition of life growing from the variant interests and aptitudes of different kinds of men. This competition may lead to the identification of "natural enemies" and, for the discipline of rhetoric, some of these are (1) the business man, who debases rhetoric by using fear and false…

Except for books by Caldwell Cook and E. A. G. Lamborn (published between 1912 and 1917), literature recommending poetry writing by school children--pioneered by Marjorie Hourd in 1949--has appeared only within the last 25 years. This literature emphasizes poetry writing as valuable in aiding children to gain both a sense of identity and an…

This paper begins defining conversation as the alternate of pro and con opinions between interactors that emphasizes the sequential and discrete nature of interaction. After reviewing the few studies that have analyzed natural interaction sequentially, a theoretical framework is proposed: interactors are decision makers who generate choices over…

Fifteen 1968-69 home economics education graduates who would be beginning teachers during the 1969-70 school year participated in a study designed to compare self concept of beginning teachers at two stages, identify classroom verbal behavior patterns, and determine if a correlation exists between self concept and verbal behavior. The Total…

The purpose of this study was to identify the differences between students who profit from compensatory education programs and those who do not. The study looked at family systems, family interactions, and individual children's behavior from a point of view that subsumes cognitive and communicational style variables which differ from the framework…

This booklet discusses the Community Cooperative Nursery School, a program of preschool education for children from a wide range of socioeconomic levels. The involvement of mothers in the classroom, in special classes, and in decision-making, is an integral part of the program. Sources of more detailed information are provided for this program,…

The assumption that the dyadic communication pattern (one teacher-one student) is the most effective pattern for encouraging language and speech development among elementary and preschool children is tested in this study. Fifty-six 4-year-old children from the Task Force Head Start Program of Buffalo, New York, were observed in four different…

Based on a theoretical rationale derived from dissonance theory, this study investigated the effects of 80%/20% ratios of positive/negative and negative/positive audience feedback on perceptual, attitudinal, and behavioral responses of normal speaking college students. Twenty-six skilled speakers and 30 unskilled speakers were randomly assigned to…

Minicourse 4 on interaction analysis, an autoinstructional package based on the use of microteaching and the videotape recorder, was designed (1) to train teachers to categorize their own classroom behavior, using Flanders' system, to an 80 percent correct criterion level; (2) to increase frequency in classroom discussions of category 2, 3, and 4…