Children's communicative strategies in novel and familiar word situations

Samantha L Nayer,Susan A Graham

doi:10.1177/0142723706064834

Abstract

The present studies investigated 3-year-olds' ability to adapt their communication based on their parents' knowledge state when requesting familiar and novel objects. Children participated in a toy retrieval game during which their parent was present or absent during toy introductions. In Study 1, children used more specific requests and cue combinations in the parent-absent group versus parent-present group when requesting familiar labelled objects. In Study 2, a similar game was administered with adaptations to reduce cognitive demands. Children produced more specific requests in the parent-absent group compared with the parent-present group when requesting an unlabelled novel object. The results indicate that three-year-olds have an emergent ability to adapt their communicative behaviours based on their parents' knowledge state.

Highlights

Effective communication requires that a speaker take into consideration the knowledge state of a listener
Children were more likely to use specific requests and cue combinations when their parent was unaware of which object was the target object compared with when their parent was aware of which object was the target object
No significant differences in requesting behaviour were found between the PA and PP groups when the object to be retrieved was new to the child or familiar but unlabelled

Summary

Introduction

Effective communication requires that a speaker take into consideration the knowledge state of a listener. Some research has demonstrated that children possess the foundational skills required to assess another’s knowledge state, such as the understanding that seeing equals knowing. Taylor (1988) found that 3-yearolds incorrectly predicted that another individual would know the identity of an object even though that individual had been shown only a small, unidentifiable piece of the object In response to this debate, O’Neill (1996, 2005) has argued that 2-year-old children do not necessarily possess a sophisticated understanding of others’ knowledge states. A second step in successful communication involves the speaker effectively adapting his/her communicative behaviours based on the knowledge state of the NAYER & GRAHAM: CHILDREN’S COMMUNICATION communicative partner, typically by providing information that the communicative partner lacks. Shwe & Markman (1997) demonstrated that 30-month-old children displayed more communicative behaviours when the experimenter misunderstood the child’s request than when the experimenter understood the child’s request

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Conclusion