Investigates whether children's representations of the linguistic description of a goal-directed event was similar to their representation of the same event observed visually. Finds that mode of presentation did not affect the recall of most important actions, but that verbal description led to recall characterized by greater cohesion than visual…

Investigates the extent of variation in children's language performance in a picture description task arising from mode (oral or written) versus degree of demand for decontextualization. Finds that children manipulated the wide range of the oral form of the contextualized/decontextualized continuum more skillfully than the written form. Finds no…

Analyzes skills involved in children's (twins and singletons) performance on communicative referential tasks and developmental changes in type and quality of messages. Finds no differences in number and type of information elements, but different interactive styles and strategies between twins and singletons, with twins showing a partner-dependent…

Reports on a study indicating children's dependency in oral persuasion on the cooperative nature of dialog and nonverbal vocalizations and their dependence in written persuasion on persuasive strategies found in speech that can be transferred to writing and, concomitantly, their relatively infrequent use of persuasive strategies specific to…

Studies the construction of coherent narrations of events in a picture storybook by children and adults. Applies a causal network discourse analysis. Analyzes the structure and content of the network representation of the main character. Reveals differences in content and structure of the narratives. (HB)

Analyzes the requests for clarification used by instruction receivers. Discusses insights about the interactive nature of communication success and failure with regard to route directions. Provides validation for a model of message comprehension. (HB)

Uses an analysis of children's interpretations of a complex episode of social interaction to illustrate three features that distinguish them from robot plans and that form a basis for a theory of the development of social action: human plans (1) are social, (2) operate on interpretations, and (3) are used, not just executed. (FL)

Describes discourse development in the sign language of 24 profoundly deaf children. Findings indicate children were acquiring appropriate discourse strategies comparable to those used by hearing children in spoken conversations and adult deaf signers. (DF)

Describes instances in which conversation topics are audibly formulated in a classroom during a one-hour science lesson and how this task may be problematic for both participants and analysts of classroom talk. (HTH)

Explores how children's performance on picture description tasks in French, their limited-use language, compares to their performance on the same tasks in English. Investigates whether home language environment has an effect on performance. (SR)

Examines the use of addressee honorifics (the "masu" form) and their nonhonorific counterpart (the plain form) at home and in classroom interactions at elementary schools in Japan from the perspective of language socialization. Finds that both at home and school the "masu" and plain forms are used as indices of the mode of…

Reports the results of a study showing that one stylistic feature, the inclusion of connectives other than "and/then" is a good predictor of explanation in five- to ten-year-olds, but a straightforward lack of linguistic resources is not necessarily what limits older children's achievement of explanatory narrative. (HTH)

Indicates a greater effect of hospitalization experience on children's general conception of hospital roles and plots than on specific linguistic markers of the sick-room register. Showed that girls performed better in the role of nurse and mother whereas boys performed relatively better in the role of doctor and father. (JD)

Examines elementary school-aged children's knowledge of directives. Presents findings of cross-sectional research which contrasted first-, third-, and fifth-grade students' comprehension, production of, and reasoning about directives varying in degree of explicitness. Indicates that children's knowledge of directives continues to develop during…

Concludes that children's discourse production is organized according to a schema that is discourse specific but modality general. (FL)