The present longitudinal study was designed to provide a description of the changes that occur across time in three mother-child with SLI dyads in conversational interaction. Analysis of the mother-child with SLI conversations included: a) a structural analysis- mean length of utterance (MLU) , mean number of utterances per turn and number of non-verbal turns for the mother and child. b) a contingency analysis, a functional analysis of mother-child interactions, and a child's conversational participation analysis. Each dyad is discussed, initially, as a single case study. Comparisons between the dyads' conversational behaviours are made and set out in the second and third parts of the results' section. These comparisons are warranted by the fact that these children were selected because they were at the same stage of language development at the beginning of the study. The analysis of the results indicated individual differences in the children's conversational participation. Nonetheless, for all three children and for all observational sessions, participation in the conversation was considered mainly adequate in relation to the mother's previous utterance. The highest proportion of maternal contingent replies were, for the three dyads and across all observational sessions, topic continuations. That is, independent of age and language level the mothers provided continuation to the current topic of conversation of the dyad. The results are evaluated in terms of methodological aspects of longitudinal studies with mother-child with SLI interaction. Some clinical implications are also discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:576095 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Salomao, Nadia Maria Ribeiro |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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