Nondisabled Boys Research Articles

Children's Responses to Nonexplicit Requests for Clarification

67 learning- and 60 non-disabled children in Grades 1 to 8 participated in a referential communication task in which they provided clues for an experimenter who indicated with varying levels of explicitness the need for a second clue. Facial feedback expressing non-comprehension did not acquire the functional equivalence of explicit requests until Grades 7 to 8. Learning disabled girls in Grades 1 and 2 were less likely than non-disabled girls to respond to facial feedback; however, learning disabled boys in these grades were more likely to respond than non-disabled boys. A locus of control measure administered to children in Grades 3 to 8 indicated that responsiveness to the implicit request, “I don't understand,” was related to a belief in internal responsibility for failure.

Requesting strategies of learning disabled children

ABSTRACTLearning disabled children's pragmatic competence was examined on a task which allowed for the separate assessment of linguistic and social knowledge, that is, the ability to appropriately vary politeness and persuasive strategies as a function of listener status. Learning disabled and nondisabled children made requests of four imaginary listeners varying on the dimensions of intimacy and power. Learning disabled girls produced more polite requests than nondisabled girls to all listeners. Learning disabled boys produced a smaller variety of persuasive appeals and fewer appeals which represented sophisticated levels of listener perspective taking. Learning disabled boys' politeness and the elaboration of their persuasive appeals exhibited variations as a function of listener features, but attended to dimensions different from those reflected in nondisabled boys' requests. It appears that learning disabled boys produced less appropriate requesting strategies than nondisabled boys, even though their repertoire of linguistic forms for conveying politeness was not deficient. These results are discussed in terms of the interdependence of the social and linguistic knowledge underlying pragmatic development.