title: Conversational control in mother-child dyads. Auditory-oral versus total communication.
abstract: This study compared the conversational control of hearing mothers who use auditory-oral communication (A/O) and those who use total communication (TC). Deaf preschool children were grouped into pairs consisting of one A/O and one TC child matched for age, intelligence, and communicative competence. Interaction between the children and their mothers was then evaluated. The mothers of both A/O and TC children were found to exert similarly high levels of conversational control; however, the TC children exerted more control than the A/O children. For both the A/O and TC groups, maternal conversational style was found to be related to the child's communicative competence. Within the A/O group, maternal style reflected the child's spoken language ability. Within the TC group, maternal style was related to the child's social development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Special Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Musselman
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Churchill
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D003145:Communication Methods, Total; D003638:Deafness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D013060:Speech