PRESCHOOLERS COMMUNICATION DURING SCRIPTED INTERACTIONS

The communicative interactions of 15 dyads of four-to five-year-olds d uring pretend play involving routine, or scripted, events were investi gated as a function of the children's knowledge of the scripts. Measur es of the quantity and quality of interaction and the strategies that the children used to establish mutual knowledge (i.e. assess and adapt to their discourse partner's level of expertise), which is essential to good communication, were examined. Each dyad participated in a MATC HED condition (both members had extensive knowledge of the script) and a MISMATCHED condition (one member had extensive script knowledge and the other did not). Shared script knowledge facilitated communicative interactions, as indicated by more topic maintenance and fewer reques ts for clarification in the matched condition than in the mismatched c ondition. The children attempted to establish mutual knowledge more fr equently in the mismatched condition than in the matched condition and , moreover, mutual knowledge establishment was related to the children 's communicative effectiveness.