The Role of Interactive Experience in The Development of Discourse Skills

Discourse abilities of cohesion, turn-taking, timing and topic-maintanence were assessed in 3-year-olds reared at home (who talked primarily with adults) and 3-year-olds who spent most of their time with peers in day care centers. The children were tape-recorded in conversation with the experimenter during a play session at their homes. Although the peer-interactive children talked more, there were no differences between groups in terms of vocabulary level, or measures which indicate a general willingness to cooperate in a conversation. The conversations were then analysed controlling for overall amount of talk and the two groups did show different conversational skills. The Peer Interaction children showed an advantage in performance on such aspects of discourse skill as participation in communicative routines (e.g. greetings, closings and contingent queries); introducing more new information; and showing better timing of their turns. The Adult Interaction children were cooperative with the experimenter's openings, but took a less active role in the conversations. These findings are interpreted in terms of the demands for conducting a successful conversation with peers, in which children must take on the "conversational housekeeping" role that adults normally assume. Thus the differences in "most frequent interlocutor" result in differences in just those skills and strategies needed for maintaining a successful conversation.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Hay, Anne Elisabeth

• Psychology, Developmental

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8324570

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/69625