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‘What says meow?’. The role of context and linguistic experience in very young children's responses to what-questions*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Rhianon Allen  and
Marilyn Shatz
Rhianon Allen
Affiliation:
New York State Psychiatric Institute and City University of New York
Marilyn Shatz
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Abstract

Children aged 1; 4 to 1; 6 were asked common what/-questions under four different contextual conditions. The presence of a gesture was found to have a significant effect on the nonverbal components of children's responses, while linguistic sophistication and type of question asked affected vocal responses, but did not produce any consistent effects on nonverbal responses. Results are interpreted as suggesting that, at this early age, gestural information is processed relatively independently of speech. These findings cast doubt on the likelihood that maternal gestures facilitate early language responding. Case-study observations of the children's interactional behaviour with mothers suggest instead that prior experience with verbal routines was a factor in the children's experimental vocal performance.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 321 - 335
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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Footnotes

[*]

We thank Elizabeth Schnur for her help in data collection and transcription and her comments on an earlier version of the work. We also thank Clare Raizman for assistance in coding. The research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada doctoral fellowship to R. Allen and by NIMH grants R 03 MH 2874 and R 01 MH 30996 and a Guggenheim fellowship to M. Shatz. We also wish to thank Bolt, Beranek and Newman for assistance in preparing the manuscript. Address for correspondence: R. Allen, Department of Child Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 722 West 168th St, New York, NY 10032.

References

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