THE EFFECTS OF DIRECTIVE COMMUNICATIONS ON CHILDRENS INTERACTIVE ENGAGEMENT - IMPLICATIONS FOR LANGUAGE INTERVENTION

This study examined the impact of directive behavior requests on child ren's participation in communicative exchanges. Two parameters of mate rnal behavior requests were studied to determine their relationship to children's level of responsiveness. Subjects were 24 two- to three-ye ar-old children with Down syndrome and their mothers. Behavior request s 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. Res ults from regression analyses indicated that the quality of children's responses was highly associated with the degree to which their mother s' requests related to their current activity. Further, children produ ced the highest levels of response when behavior requests were complet ely related to their current activity and at-or below their current de velopmental level. These results are discussed in terms of their impli cations for language intervention procedures that are intended to merg e communication and learning theories of language acquisition.