Conversational interaction between adults and young severely mentally handicapped children
Conversational interaction between adults and mentally handicapped children is explored by analysing samples of naturalistic adult-child interaction obtained from three preschool mentally handicapped children playing with their mothers at home and their teachers in their classrooms. The adult input is analysed in terms of its grammatical structure and conversational functions, and comparisons are made between maternal and teacher input. The children's contributions to the conversational interaction are explored by analysing the words and word-like forms contained within prosodically defined utterances, focussing on the most productive child. The results reveal that whereas there were similarities in the maternal and teacher input, some differences emerge; for example, all adults took the major responsibility for the dialogue but, as a group, the teachers used a slightly higher proportion of well-formed grammatical utterances than the mothers who tended to make more use of short phrases, recitation and well learnt routines. Differences also occurred in the adults' use of language. The mothers, as a group, used higher proportions of their utterances to gain and maintain the children's attention and to request
Edwards, Susan
Linguistics
Conversational interaction between adults and young severely mentally handicapped children. Conversational interaction between adults and mentally handicapped children is explored by analysing samples of naturalistic adult-child interaction obtained from three preschool mentally handicapped children playing with their mothers at home and their teachers in their classrooms. The adult input is analysed in terms of its grammatical structure and conversational functions, and comparisons are made between maternal and teacher input. The children's contributions to the conversational interaction are explored by analysing the words and word-like forms contained within prosodically defined utterances, focussing on the most productive child. The results reveal that whereas there were similarities in the maternal and teacher input, some differences emerge; for example, all adults took the major responsibility for the dialogue but, as a group, the teachers used a slightly higher proportion of well-formed grammatical utterances than the mothers who tended to make more use of short phrases, recitation and well learnt routines. Differences also occurred in the adults' use of language. The mothers, as a group, used higher proportions of their utterances to gain and maintain the children's attention and to request
conversational_interaction adult young severely child conversational_interaction adult handicap child explore analyse sample naturalistic adult_child interaction obtain handicap child play mother home teacher classroom adult input analyse term grammatical_structure conversational function comparison_make maternal teacher input child contribution conversational_interaction explore analysing word word like form contain_within define utterance focus productive child reveal whereas similarity maternal teacher input difference_emerge example adult take major responsibility dialogue group teacher use slightly high_proportion well formed grammatical utterance mother tend make_use short phrase recitation well learnt routine differences also occur adult use language mother group use high_proportion utterance gain maintain child attention request