Early Discourse Behavior: An Analysis of Children's Responses to Listener Feedback

Abstract

WILCOX, M. JEANNE, and WEBSTER, ELIZABETH J. Early Discourse Behavior: An Analysis of Children's Responses to Listener Feedback. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 1120-1125. The purpose of this study was to examine strategies used by young children when listener feedback indicated that their requests were not understood. Subjects were 16 children ranging in age from 17 to 24 months. Two types of feedback were used to create communicative failure. In one condition the investigator indicated that the message was ambiguous by saying What? In the other condition the investigator indicated that only the intent of the message was misunderstood by responding to the requests as if they were declarative statements. Results indicated that the patterns of the children's responses demonstrated their awareness and use of socially appropriate speaker options. It was concluded that children in these early stages of language development have acquired at least rudimentary knowledge of appropriate conversational behavior.