Development of Turn Taking in a Young Child in Relationship to Pauses in the Mother's Speech

Abstract

The development of turn taking skills was analyzed during interactions of one mother child pair. This analysis investigated the frequency and length of dyadic pauses in the mother's speech. It was hypothesized that these dyadic pauses were turn yielding signals that the mother used to cue her child to take her turn in the conversational interaction. It was further hypothesized that there would be changes in the frequency and length of dyadic pauses as the child became a more active participant in the turn taking process. The results of this study indicated that both the frequency and length of pauses changed with increases in the linguistic skills of the child. These results are discussed in light of the methodological procedure used as well as to the changes in the: child's responses.