MOTHERS' CONTROL OF NORMAL AND DEVELOPMENTALLY DELAYED CHILDREN IN COMMUNICATIVE INTERACTION

The focus of this study was to determine whether child development maturity contributes to the controlling language style of mothers who interact with their developmentally delayed children. The research examined the effects of child age and child intelligence and the interaction of these variables on mothers' language. Also, the correlations between mothers' language behaviors and children's intelligence and communicative contributions were examined.;The correlational data supported the prediction that child intelligence and child language competence would influence mothers' controlling language style. It was hypothesized that mothers' controlling language would correlate negatively with child intelligence and child high contributory language and positively with child low contributory language. Conversely, it was hypothesized that mothers' noncontrolling language would correlate positively with child intelligence and child high contributory language and negatively with child low contributory language. Thirty-two of the thrity-seven significant correlations supported the hypotheses.;The data were considered in relationship to the developmentally delayed children's language capabilities and the literature on adult language to normal children. The results supported a social-interactional viewpoint that both adult and child play a significant role in adult-child communication.;The data consist of codings of 52 mother-child pairs engaged in free play in their own homes: 26 mothers with their 2 1/2-5-year-old normal children and 26 mothers with their 2 1/2-5-year-old delayed children. Child age and child intelligence were significant effects for thee mother language indices: directives, true questions, and informative statements. Child intelligence, but not child age, was a significant effect for mother's proportion of utterances per turn, verbal episode initiations, and confirmation utterances. There was a significant interaction effect between child age and child intelligence for mothers' limiting questions.