Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T10:41:00.846Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Directive interactions and early vocabulary development: the role of joint attentional focus*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Nameera Akhtar ,
Frances Dunham  and
Philip J. Dunham
Nameera Akhtar*
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
Frances Dunham
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
Philip J. Dunham
Affiliation:
Dalhousie University
*
Department of Psychology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4J1, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Maternal directiveness, assessed by the mother's use of prescriptives, is correlated with slow vocabulary development. As prescriptives are most often used to redirect a child's attention to a different object or activity, it is hypothesized that attentional regulation underlies this negative relationship. In the present study, twelve mothers were videotaped interacting with their children aged 1;1, and 100 maternal utterances were coded for pragmatic intent. Prescriptives were coded as either changing (LEADING) or FOLLOWING the child's focus of attention. Only the frequency of mothers' FOLLOW-prescriptives correlated significantly with a productive vocabulary measure taken at 1;10. This correlation was high and positive, indicating that, given joint focus, directing a 13-month-old's behaviour can have beneficial effects on subsequent vocabulary development.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 41 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Award 410-89-1477) to P.J.Dunham.

References

REFERENCES

Barnes, S., Gutfreund, M., Satterly, D. & Wells, G. (1983). Characteristics of adult speech which predict children's language development. Journal of Child Language 10. 65–84.Google Scholar
Bohannon, J. N. & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (1984). Do children say as they're told? A new perspective on motherese. In Feagans, L., Garvey, C. & Golinkoff, R. (eds), The origins and growth of communication. Norwood, NJ: AblexGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. (1977). Introduction. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1985). Child's talk: learning to use language. New York: NortonGoogle Scholar
Cross, T. G. (1977). Mother's speech adjustments: the contributions of selected child listener variables. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Cross, T. G. (1978). Mothers' speech and its association with rate of linguistic development in young children. In Waterson, N. & Snow, C. E. (eds), The development of communication. New York: WileyGoogle Scholar
Della Corte, M., Benedict, H. & Klein, D. (1983). The relationship of pragmatic dimensions of mothers' speech to the referential-expressive distinction. Journal of Child Language 10. 35–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furrow, D., Nelson, K. & Benedict, H. (1979). Mothers' speech to children and syntactic development: some simple relationships. Journal of Child Language 6. 423–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gleitman, L. R., Newport, E. L. & Gleitman, H. (1984). The current state of the motherese hypothesis. Journal of Child Language 11. 43–79.Google Scholar
Harris, M., Jones, D., Brookes, S. & Grant, J. (1986). Relations between non-verbal context of maternal speech and rate of language development. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 4. 261–8.Google Scholar
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. & Shatz, M. (1982). Linguistic input and the child's acquisition of language. Psychological Bulletin 92, 3–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, K. (1973). Structure and strategy in learning to talk. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, nos. 1–2.Google Scholar
Nelson, K. E. (1980). Theories of the child's acquisition of syntax: a look at rare events and at necessary, catalytic, and irrelevant components of mother-child conversations. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 345. 45–67.Google Scholar
Olsen-Fulero, L. (1982). Style and stability in mother conversational behaviour: a study of individual differences. Journal of Child Language 9. 543–64.Google Scholar
Pappas Jones, C. & Adamson, L. B. (1987). Language use in mother-child and child-sibling interactions. Child Development 58. 356–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reznick, J. S. & Goldsmith, L. (1989). A multiple form word production checklist for assessing early language. Journal of Child Language 16. 91–100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rocissano, L. & Yatchmink, Y. (1983). Language skill and interactive patterns in prematurely born toddlers. Child Development 54, 1229–41.Google Scholar
Shatz, M. (1978). On the development of communicative understandings: an early strategy for interpreting and responding to messages. Cognitive Psychology 10. 271–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smolak, L. (1987). Child characteristics and maternal speech. Journal of Child Language 14, 481–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, C. E. (1977). Mothers' speech research: from input to interactions. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition. New York: C.U.P.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development 57. 1454–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., Mannle, S. & Kruger, A. C. (1986). Linguistic environment of 1- to 2-year-old twins. Developmental Psychology 22. 169–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M. & Todd, J. (1983). Joint attention and lexical acquisition style. First Language 4. 197–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoder, P. J. & Kaiser, A. P. (1989). Alternative explanations for the relationship between maternal verbal interaction style and child language development. Journal of Child Language 16. 141–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed