Managing trouble spots in conversation

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines other-initiated repair sequences in everyday conversations between a bilingual youth with autism and his family members. The analysis is centered on the types of repair initiators produced by the youth, the targets of his repair elicitations, and his family members’ subsequent actions. Findings include two dominant patterns in the data that indicate marked differences in the ways the youth’s parents interact with him. The discussion highlights the youth’s ability to shift the participation framework to facilitate his understanding of a previous utterance; the analysis also reveals the strategies employed by some of his family members to encourage interactional progressivity. The concluding section addresses implications of the study for understanding how bilingual youth with autism target trouble sources, enact alignment, and draw from their bilingual proficiencies in everyday conversations.