This study examined parent-child relationships during intervention with 25 preschoolers having developmental disabilities. Both parent and child performances were analyzed on a series of behavioral attributes reflecting developmentally appropriate child goals, adult strategies, partnership goals, and potential interactive problems. Videotaped…

Argues that adjustment to nursing homes is influenced by peer group and staff-patient interaction. Concludes that both staff and residents place demands and expectations on newcomers' conduct, and staff define successful and unsuccessful adjustment so that patients are constrained in the range of socially acceptable behavior they are permitted to…

In this paper we focus on the role of signs in students' perceptive processes underpinning the generalization of numeric-geometric patterns. Based on a videotaped Grade 9 classroom group activity undertaken by three students and framed by a cultural-semiotic theoretical perspective, we carry out a microgenetic analysis of an elementary form of…

Analysis of communicative exchanges between 24 children (ages 2-3) with Down syndrome and their mothers found that the quality of children's responses was highly associated with the degree to which the mothers' requests were related to the child's current activity and matched or were below the child's current developmental level. (DB)

Psychoanalysis, which focuses on unconscious mental processes, in contrast with the aggressive rational, linear, and goal-oriented nature of legal thinking, is used as a framework for understanding the art of negotiation in legal work. It is argued that a psychoanalytic approach can help people understand how they may help or hinder themselves in…

Examines the communicative competence of young children acquiring English and French simultaneously in the home by observing how they used their languages during separate play sessions with monolingual strangers and their bilingual parents. Findings reveal that all of the children made some accommodations linked to the monolingualism of the…

Reports a study of 559 children of 5-6 years to determine language interaction differences in males and females in day care centers and part-time preschools in Sweden. A significant correlation was found between sex and form of preschool in regards to language interaction between the child and the personnel. (RJC)

This article reports on several studies that used discourse analysis to interpret the linguistic interactions between students with special educational needs in segregated and integrated settings. Results indicated that integrated settings were characterized by "didactic" interactions, while segregated settings showed "familiar" behavior. (DB)

Occasions where children oppose each other have been claimed to convey intellectual benefits through their association with justification and resolution. They have been claimed to promote social rejection through their association with aggression. Because it is inconceivable that intellectual benefits imply social costs, either the relation…

Communication skills are important for children with developmental disabilities to be functional and independent in their own lives. This study examined influences of different types of listener feedback or breakdowns on repair behaviors of nonverbal children with disabilities during semi-structured opportunities at snack time. Three preschool…

Interactions between teachers and multiply disabled students were videotaped, and procedures were developed to analyze the interactions, in order to assist the teachers in evaluating the relationship between their own and their student's communicative behavior. Coding categories were prepared to identify characteristics of the student's…

One hundred interactions involving 4,231 communicative acts between classroom personnel and multiply disabled students were videotaped. The resulting data were coded and analyzed, and showed that: (1) conventional communicative forms (e.g., speech, manual signs, conventional nonverbal expressions) were selected to convey information to students…

A study examined age differences in the use of interaction management strategies. Students (13 seventh-graders and 24 eleventh-graders) were asked to describe how to play a game to a peer. Each speaker then became a listener in the next dyad. A tally was kept of speaker and listener use of six categories of feedback, and the quality of that…

Presents a method of defining cooccurring constellations or "packages" of maternal facial-visual engagement and head or hand stimulation during face-to-face play with an infant. The functional relevance of these packages is documented in case studies of one four-month-old infant playing with his mother and a stranger. (Author/CB)

The Greenspan-Lieberman Observational System Revised was used to evaluate characteristics of dyadic interactions between 10 hearing mothers and hearing toddlers (HH), 10 deaf mothers and deaf toddlers (DD), and 10 hearing mothers and deaf toddlers (HD). Findings suggest that assessment instruments require some modifications and results must be…