Verbal and nonverbal components of pointing initiation by Down's Syndrome children when looking at books were studied. Analysis of initiation patterns and point duration revealed possible developmental progression from a stage where point and exchange duration are linked to a stage where pointing becomes more detached from the exchange. (21…

Behaviors often regarded as diseases are in fact, normal events. Growth, both physical and mental is discussed, including a list of learning modes ranging from ontogenic to verbal transaction. Autistic children are considered. Causes, effects and characteristics such as: (1) irregularities in sleep, (2) irregularities in the environment, (3)…

Piaget has suggested that a child's language reflects the degree to which he is able to take into account the point of view of his listener. His inability to do so results in what Piaget calls egocentric speech whereas what Piaget calls socialized speech indicates that the child actually adopts his listener's viewpoint and engages in an exchange…

The development of communication ability between very young children is examined. (JD)

The discourse interaction between adult and child was examined in terms of the content of their utterances, and the linguistic and contextual relations between their messages, in order to investigate how children use the information from adults' input sentences to form contingent responses. (Author/BW)

Face-to-face communication makes up only a small proportion of an infant's diurnal transactions with his environment, but it is viewed as crucial to his total development. Research was conducted in which adult and infant behaviors were videotaped, and their interactions were analyzed. (Author/HP)

A major purpose of the research reported here is to determine whether or not children of minority backgrounds possess the ability to tell stories and verbalize in narrative form at age 3 and 4. Narratives and speech play were collected over a 9-month period in two Headstart classes in Honolulu (Hawaii). The children, most of mixed backgrounds,…

This article offers a framework for language intervention focusing on conversational interaction, suggests some parallels between oral conversations and the development of literacy, and offers guidelines for facilitating the development of language and literacy. Implications for a model of written language are discussed. (PB)

This study focuses on the systematic study of verbal behavior patterns of college elementary education student teaching supervisors in dyadic conferences with student teachers and cooperating teachers. The major research problem of the study concerned the possible differences in the verbal behavior patterns of college supervisors while interacting…

This study examined the effects of maternal directive and nondirective styles of interaction on the emergence of verbal communicative intent in toddlers, and sought to understand the association between maternal interaction styles and young children's pragmatic acquisition. During free play, maternal utterances of 12 mother-child dyads, with…

Forty-eight middle-income children, equally divided as to sex, looked at a sequence of animated films in which a pair of male figures underwent a change in facial affect. Three questions were posed: (1) Could a qualitative-structural analysis be applied to the kinds of explanations given by the children to account for changes in facial affect? (2)…

This is a study of how children in a small community called Rosepoint, in the vicinity of New Orleans, acquire speech. The author provides essential contextualization for her problem, dealing with family composition, life space, means used to control children, and interaction between members of the household. The author made intensive observations…

Discusses an alternate method of examining the verbal interaction of mothers and their children in dyadic communication. The behavior of both mothers and children differed significantly according to the ages of the children involved. Acta Symbolica, 807 Jefferson Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee 38105. Subscription Rates: annually, $12.00 individuals,…

A paper by Keenan and Klein (1975) provided evidence for the hypothesis that conversationality is present in children as young as 2 and 1/2 years of age. Results of the study indicated that before the emergence of more adult-like coherency operations, the children passed through a period in which such operations were foreshadowed by vocal play.…

This article discusses how the processing, form, and content requirements of written language pose challenges to professionals trying to design and implement regular or remedial educational programs. Differences between oral and written language; influences of culture, value systems, and world knowledge; and structure and content interactions are…