Adult Communicative Styles and childrens language

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Adult Communicative Styles and childrens
language

• Caroline Bowen PhD
• Speech-Language Pathologist

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these slides are about

• Language teachers communicative styles
• The terms teaching and teacher are used
  here in their broadest senses.
• For a child learning language, parents,
  pre-school teachers, speech-language pathologists
  and other adults (and even older children) are
  all teachers.

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communicative style

• The term communicative style refers to the
  way adults (or language teachers) engage
  children in conversation
• the language they use and the way they ask
  questions.

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reticent children

• Children with communication impairments are often
  quite talkative at home and with their
  speech-language pathologists.
• These same children may say very little, or
  nothing at all, at daycare, pre-school school,
  when out, etc.
• Think about the points raised in this
  presentation in relation to helping reticent
  children to be more forthcoming
  conversationally.

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intended audience

• These slides are for parents and caregivers of
  children with speech sound disorders including
• functional speech disorders
• developmental phonological disorders
• developmental apraxia of speech

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language learning

• All children are language learners.
• Part of their speech and language development
  is innate.
• Part of it is learned through the modelling of
  people around them.
• Parents are young childrens main speech and
  language teachers.

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researchers have investigated teachers
communicative style

• looking at
• The way adults talk to children, or, in other
  words, the adults communicative styles.
• The immediate effect of the various styles on
  childrens communication.

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the adult communicative styles investigated were

• Enforced repetitions
• Two-choice questions
• Wh type questions
• Personal contributions
• Phatics

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1. enforced repetitions

• In this styleThe adult asks the child to
  repeat what the adult says.

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enforced repetitionsA Adult C Child

• A What are you doing?
• C Painting.
• A Say Painting a house.
• C Painting a house.
• A Good girl. Good talking.

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? bad news! the researchers found
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the effect of enforced repetitions on
communication

• Enforced repetitions do not increase the childs
  mean length of conversational turn.
• Children are not able to imitate structures more
  complex than their spontaneous utterances.

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2. two-choice questions

• In this style
• The adult asks a child a question that offers two
  choices
• To say yes / no
• To say a word or phrase

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two-choice questions A Adult C Child

• A Is that a red pen?
• C No.
• A Thats right, its a blue pen.

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two-choice questionsA Adult C Child

• A Is that a red pen or a blue pen?
• C A blue pen.
• A Yes, thats right, it is a blue pen.

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? ? bad news and not such bad newsthe
researchers found
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the effect on communication of two-choice
questions

• Childrens verbal responses are shorter than with
  any of the other styles.
• Children tend to give single-word responses or
  non-verbal responses.

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two-choice questions

• It is difficult for a teacher to know if the
  child understands 2-choice questions.
• After all, there is a 50 chance of the child
  answering correctly.
• Children can become very passive, leaving all of
  the responsibility for communication with the
  adult.

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two-choice questions

• Can be useful to help a child expand a theme.

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3. Wh type questions

• In this style
• The adult asks the child a question containing
  a Wh question word why, what, where, when,
  who, whose, which.

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Wh type questionsA Adult C Child

• A Wheres the truck?
• C POINTS
• A And whos on the truck?
• C Spot.
• S Whats Spot doing?
• C Driving it.

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? ? not such bad news and good newsthe
researchers found
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the effect on communication of Wh type
questions

• In excess, Wh questions are likely to inhibit
  children from playing an active role in
  conversation.
• Wh questions are only likely to receive an
  appropriate response if the child understands the
  question.

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Wh type questions

• Can be useful for monitoring comprehension.
• This style leads to the highest incidence of
  repair.

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4. personal contributions

• In this style
• The adult avoids asking questions and chooses
  topics of interest to the particular child.
• The topic choice is child-led if possible.

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personal contributions A Adult C Child

• A I went to the Great Australian Muster in the
  holidays
• C Me too!
• A I though it was great.
• C But too noisy. Dad said it was too noisy.

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personal contributions A Adult C Child

• A Your dad though it was noisy? I think hes
  right!
• C Mummy said it was noisy too.
• Not me. I like it.
• A Noise doesnt bother you?
• C No, not never!

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? ? good news!the researchers found
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the effect on communication of personal
contributions

• Children initiate more conversational turns.
• Children initiate more conversational topics.
• Children are more talkative.
• Some children say more in this style than in the
  phatic style.

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personal contributions

• There can be uncomfortable silences when using
  this style.
• Children and teachers can get over their fear of
  silence!

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personal contributions

• Children are afforded more time to think about
  what they want to communicate, and to plan how to
  do it, with this style.

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5. phatics

• In this style
• The adult tries to say nothing with any content
  apart from acknowledging the childs contribution
• Questions are avoided.
• Topics are initiated by the child.

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phatics A Adult C Child

• A That looks good.
• C Its going up high.
• A True.
• C High up to the sky.
• A Uh-huh
• C Maybe it might fall down. Crash!
• A It might! Its very high!

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? ? ? very good news!the researchers found
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the effect on communication of phatics

• The increase in MLUm can be dramatic with this
  style.
• Children may begin to tell stories.
• MLUm the childs mean length of utterance
  measured in morphemes (units of meaning)

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phatics

• It is often difficult to follow what children are
  communicating because they rely on gesture, mime
  and actions, and they leap from one topic to
  another!

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references

• Dillon, J.T. (1982). The multidisciplinary study
  of questioning. Journal of Educational Psychology
  74, 2, 147-165
• Wood, D., Wood, H., Griffiths, A. and Howarth, I.
  (1986). Teaching and talking with deaf children.
  Chichester Wiley

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summary

• Enforced repetitions ?
• Two-choice questions ? ?
• Wh type questions ? ?
• Personal contributions ? ?
• Phatics ? ? ?

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Caroline Bowen PhDSpeech Pathology Practice9
Hillcrest Rd, Wentworth Falls, 2782

• Phone [phone]
• Internet www.speech-language-therapy.com
• e-mail cbowen_at_ihug.com.au

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