The Effects of Directive Communications on Children's Interactive Engagement

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Abstract
This study examined the impact of directive behavior requests on children's participation in communicative exchanges. Two parameters of maternal behavior requests were studied to determine their relationship to children's level of responsiveness. Subjects were 24 two- to three-year-old children with Down syndrome and their mothers. Behavior requests were coded according to their relationship to children's activities and level of developmental difficulty. Children's responses were rated according to how well they complied with their mothers' requests. Results from regression analyses indicated that the quality of children's responses was highly associated with the degree to which their mothers' requests related to their current activity. Further, children produced the highest levels of response when behavior requests were completely related to their current activity and at or below their current developmental level. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for language intervention procedures that are intended to merge communication and learning theories of language acquisition.