Although the kind of transactional dialogue used in everyday trade can be of potentially great value, those found in textbooks tend to be of limited usefulness because they are unrealistically long, complex, formal, and descriptive, overuse atypical structures or vocabulary, and assume an understanding of the culture. (MSE)

A study was undertaken to separate elements of maternal speech heavily influenced by the children's language levels from those representing the mothers' consistent style or strategy for "teaching" language. A striking similarity was found between speech mothers used with their daughters and that used with their daughters' friends. (MSE)

Children listened to stories which contained anomalies produced by violating semantic restrictions or based on conflicting propositions at two points in a story. The capacity to detect violations of sentences developed more rapidly than detection of violation of discourse. Children's developing capacity to integrate and store story structure is…

This study examined the discourse-processing operations of children identified as good and poor readers. It entailed comparing subjects' memory of text to the content and structure of the text itself. Findings indicated differences in both the quality and quantity of student recall. (MKM)

Provides several research questions regarding discourse theory, which can be answered by classroom teachers of writing using their students' writing. (DD)

Reports on research on point of view and its effect on reading processes. (AM)

Examines the theoretical category in discourse analysis called "inferrable information" and challenges the implicit assumptions that lead Prince (1981) to distinguish between inferrable and invoked information. Four marked syntactic constructions in Farsi and English are examined that have previously been shown to be relevant to…

Two studies, involving 11 teachers and 195 gifted students, found that interactive writing between teachers and gifted students can promote collaborative learning. Teachers did not spontaneously journal with students in ways most conducive to this mode of learning but learned to use interactive, collaborative discourse functions when shown proper…

Fifteen preschool children with specific language impairment engaged in typical language intervention activities during conversation-based and imitation-based language programs. A higher number of positive social valence ratings; higher frequency of smiling, laughing, and engagement; and higher rate of verbal initiations were noted within…

TALK (Talk Aid using pre-Loaded Knowledge) is a computer system linked to a speech synthesizer which enables nonspeaking people to engage in real-time social conversation. TALK provides categories of general comments that can be used whenever a suitable specific response is unavailable. Results are reported of a study evaluating effectiveness of…

This paper reviews studies of conversational turn-management timing behaviors used by children who stutter and their parents. Temporal aspects of conversations between children who stutter and their parents do not differ significantly from parent-nonstuttering child conversations. Parental manipulation of speech rate and response-time latency may…

This article evaluates the extent to which syntactic, lexical, and conversational factors can significantly predict the frequency and loci of stuttered moments in children's speech. A synthesis of the experimental and clinical evidence suggests ways in which the assessment and remediation of fluency disorders in children can be tailored to…

This study analyzed dialogs between 10 mothers and their children, ages 12-14, who were normally hearing or orally communicating deaf. Adolescents who were deaf displayed similar turn-taking skills to the normally hearing adolescents. Mothers of deaf adolescents did not dominate the conversation. (Author/SW)

Selected discourse behaviors of 10 elementary school children with specific language impairment (SLI) presenting expressive or combined expressive-receptive deficits were compared to each other and to two groups of controls. The two SLI subgroups varied from each other on specific measures of turn taking and cohesion. Research implications are…

This paper discusses topic management as a parameter of discourse that is essential for the establishment of coherence. The paper discusses a model for the assessment of discourse topic management, normal developmental patterns and prerequisite skills, and patterns of normal development versus disrupted topic management in specific…