Turn-Taking Characterist ics of Children with Specific Language Impairment and Normal Children

Lee, Hyo Jin; Kim, Young-Tae

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2001;6(2): 293-312.

Hyo Jin Lee^` , and Young-Tae Kim^`

이효진(Hyo Jin Lee)| 김영태(Young-Tae Kim)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the turn- taking characteristics between the specific language impaired (SLI) and the normal children. Fifteen SLI children and fifteen normal children, matched with their language age at 4;0- 5;11, participated in this study. Spontaneous utterances were elicited and videotaped from the free play interactions between the child and the researcher. The result s were analyzed with t - test. The results indicated that the SLI children showed qualitative and quantitative differences from those of the normal children in terms of turn error s, interruptions, interactive attention, responsiveness, number of turns, adjacent and contingent responses. To be more specific, the result s of the present study were as follows: (1) both groups of children didn t show any significant differences in the percentages of occurrence of simultaneous and nonsimultaneous turns, (2) The percentage of occurrence of SLI children s sentence- initial overlaps was significantly higher than that of the normal children, (3) Both groups of children didn t show any significant difference in the percentages of occurrence of sentence- internal overlaps, (4) There were significant differences in responsiveness, number of turns, contingent responses between the two groups. The SLI children were significantly less responsive than normal children. In addition, the SLI children produced significantly fewer turns and contingent responses than normal children, (5) There was no significant difference in utterance focus and in adjacent responses.