Contextual effects on the conversations of mothers and their children with language impairment

Twenty-four mothers and their preschool children with language impairment participated in two 12-min sessions of toy play and book reading that were transcribed to yield maternal mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU-m), type token ratio (TTR), and maternal interaction style (directive vs. resp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied psycholinguistics 2015-03, Vol.36 (2), p.323-344
Main Authors: STICH, MELANIE, GIROLAMETTO, LUIGI, JOHNSON, CARLA J., CLEAVE, PATRICIA L., CHEN, XI
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Child Language
Children
Conversation
Educational Environment
Imperative sentences
Interpersonal communication
Language
Language Acquisition
Language disorders
Language standardization
Linguistic Input
Linguistic productivity
Linguistics
Mean length of utterance
Morphemes
Mothers
Parents & parenting
Preschool children
Reading
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Summary:Twenty-four mothers and their preschool children with language impairment participated in two 12-min sessions of toy play and book reading that were transcribed to yield maternal mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU-m), type token ratio (TTR), and maternal interaction style (directive vs. responsive). Maternal MLU-m was significantly longer during book reading than during toy play, whereas TTR was similar across contexts. In contrast, children's MLU-m was similar across contexts, whereas TTR was higher during book reading. Mothers used an eliciting style characterized by more commands and questions during toy play than during book reading. Only maternal MLU-m predicted children's expressive language skills (i.e., a composite score of two standardized language tests). The implications include sampling both book reading and play interactions because they provide differential opportunities for conversation and language productivity.
ISSN:0142-7164
1469-1817
DOI:10.1017/S0142716413000258