Reciprocal interactions between teachers and two groups of preschoolers (four autistic, four mildly developmentally delayed) were observed and recorded. Teachers or aides ignored most negative initiations. Although most neutral interactions (e.g., question-answer) were reciprocal, students (especially the autistic group) did not respond…

Analysis of instructor (n=1) and student (n=61) postings on an electronic forum during a one-semester undergraduate phonetics course found students wrote about 340 topics in 143 postings, and the instructor wrote about 124 topics in 23 postings. Analysis of topics identified four interactive communicative categories that show interaction trends…

Videotaped interactions of 98 mother-child dyads (40 with Down syndrome, 23 with neurological problems, and 35 with delays of unknown etiology) were examined for mothers' language facilitation strategies (modeling or eliciting) in two situations (play and teaching). Mothers emphasized modeling strategies more than eliciting techniques. This…

This study used microethnographic techniques to analyze the communication strategies used by a hearing-impaired preschool child to access social interactions. Strategies tended to be similar to those of his peer subgroup, though nonverbal strategies prevailed. Teachers promoted the child's verbal request "Can I play," but it was unsuccessful in…

This study, involving four staff members in an institution for people with mental retardation, found that a computerized system of prompts to improve staff-client interactions produced more positive statements, improved distribution of interaction among clients, and resulted in delivery of more positive reinforcement than a traditional…

This study used ethnographic techniques to observe and analyze the communication patterns of two Latina college students in order to better understand the poor performance of many Latino students in college-level composition classes. Both students experienced frustration, anger, suspicion, and mistrust. They felt that school was trying to change…

This study compared effects of either a teacher-mediated social skills intervention or an integrated activities intervention on social interaction among young (ages four to six) children with and without hearing impairments. The social skills intervention successfully increased social interactions among deaf and hard-of-hearing children, but…

Traditionally, group research has focused on outcome rather than process. In order to provide an efficient means of data collection and analysis in group process, the Automatic Vocal Transaction Analyzer (AVTA) system was developed to generate an objective chronography of conversation vocalizations, pauses, turntaking, switching, and…

Reports on a study of the interactions of students in Australian high schools and was designed to focus on "target students" who monopolized whole class interactions. Students who were asked by teachers to be target students tended to have higher formal reasoning ability and achievement levels than the other students. (TW)

This study examined the effectiveness of embedding a targeted linguistic structure within an interactive instructional context with 10 deaf and hard-of-hearing students in grades 6 and 7. Comparison with control subjects supported the effectiveness of adopting instructional strategies consistent with a social-interaction perspective on language…

This study assessed collateral effects during unstructured dinnertime family interactions of two different paradigms for training parents of 17 children with autism. One taught individual target behaviors serially, and the other taught the pivotal responses (PRT) of motivation and responsivity to multiple cues. Results suggested the PRT…

This manual was developed in order to study the sociomoral atmospheres of three kindergarten classrooms. Previous research by Robert Selman et al. conceptualized developmental levels of interpersonal understanding in terms of two types of experiences: negotiation, where the developmental goal is identity separate from others; and shared…

A discussion of points raised by Dell Hymes in his article "On Communicative Competence" leads to a proposal for a clearer and more comprehensive theory of communicative competence based on two models, a matrix of discourse analysis and a model of communication interaction. Pedagogical implications of the theory are considered, including the…

Three cooperating teacher-student teacher dyads identified as "most effective" and three dyads identified as "least effective" were compared and contrasted to determine characteristics that distinguished the more from the least effective experiences. Ten quantitatively scored instruments, administered to both cooperating teachers and student…

Tested a model of uncertainty reduction derived from Berger and Calabrese's theory of initial interaction. Concluded that the model appears to be a reasonable fit to the data on communication in interpersonal relationships among college students in Japan, Korea, and the U.S. (PD)