Teaching talk? ; A study of the effects of responsive versus nonresponsive teacher communicative behaviors on the communicative behaviors of preschoolers with retardation during free play / Jill S. Greenberg.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Greenberg, Jill S.

Contributor:

Goodman, Joan F., advisor.

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Education.

Education--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Education.

Education--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

ix, 133 leaves : illustrations ; 29 cm

Production:

1993.

Summary:

The purpose of the present study was to examine some communicative behaviors between teachers and preschool children with retardation that have been found to be of importance to early language acquisition. A central hypothesis of the study was that teacher use of child-centered communicative behaviors would result in increased child communication and involvement in the interaction, in much the same way as has been observed in mother-child interactions. To test this hypothesis fifteen preschool children with mental retardation were videotaped during three five minute play sessions with their teachers. To obtain information concerning the communicative behaviors of each partner, the latter ten minutes of tape were transcribed and coded according to Tannock (1983). Communicative turn types chosen for analysis included those that would provide information concerning teacher and child responsiveness, topic control, response control, and child involvement. Analyses of the relationship of specific communicative turns to a partner's preceding turn were conducted by calculating conditional probabilities for each turn type. Comparisons of conditional probabilities, using arcsin transformations, provided information concerning the likelihood of one or another specific turn types occurring in relation to a partner's preceding turn. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, results of the present study indicate that children with retardation are no more communicative when teachers are child-centered in their interactions than when teachers exercise topic control. This is in sharp contrast to the findings (reported in the vast mother-child literature) that child centered interactions may enhance language acquisition in young language learners. Three explanations for the results are explored: (1) a minimal level of scaffolding and intersubjectivity, not attained by teacher and child in this study, may be necessary for sustained reciprocity to occur, (2) the instrument used to measure specific communicative behaviors may have failed to identify essential factors of the teacher-child interaction, (3) the hypothesis concerning the importance of child-centered interactions in early language acquisition may not hold for teacher-child interactions.

Notes:

Supervisor: Joan F. Goodman.

Thesis (Ph.D. in Education) -- Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, 1993.

Includes bibliography.

Local Notes:

University Microfilms order no.: 93-31780.

OCLC:

80858914