Investigated the reasons children (ages three through eight) give in supplication situations. Findings clearly demonstrate the development of reason-giving strategies in children. (PD)

The conferencee discussions and papers presented in this volume reflect the opinions and research of 20 authorities in the field of communication development. These authorities offer new perspectives on nonverbal communication, speech reception and production, and the development of language and thought. To provide a better understanding of…

A study involving 26 children, aged five to eight years, employed a clinical interview method to examine the children's recognition and knowledge of rule violations in communication. The rules, derived from H. P. Grice's "be cooperative" principle, referred mainly to the maxim "be perspicuous, unequivocal, clear, and…

A study was conducted to see if there was a developmental progression in the type of persuasive appeals selected by children; that is, whether the appeals could be ordered in terms of the degree to which the children accommodated the views of others. The subjects, 211 kindergarten through twelfth grade students, selected one of four messages they…

Examines the communication strategies adopted by people of differing ages attempting to perform a referential communication task and to determine their ability to adapt their strategies to various task conditions. (HOD)

Compared two approaches to assessing the development of persuasive skills in children: asking them to generate messages versus having them select from preformulated messages or strategies. Also investigated the approach of asking children to indicate their rationale for choosing a particular message. Found more success with message generation than…

In an effort to describe the linguistic relational categories used by elementary school children, 75 children in grades one through six were asked to complete a puzzle by placing each of three identical triangles on a drawing of a fish, one on the dorsal, one on the ventral, and one on the tail. A piece of Velcro was attached to the back of two…

This study of students (grades 1-12) concluded that the relationship between social-cognitive ability and the communication skill of comforting is contingent on age. (Comforting strategies are those messages having the intended function of alleviating, moderating, or salving the distressed emotional states of others.) (PD)

Studies children's justification of message choices as characteristics of their reasoning processes. Indicates that interpersonal reasoning increases in sophistication and complexity over the age groups studied and that females reason at a higher level than males. Situational influences on level of interpersonal reasoning were also found. (JMF)