| Case-study evidence suggests that context may play a role in language impaired (LI) children's rate and style of participation in classroom discourse. The current study examines if language dimensions such as participation rates, self-monitoring, errors, conversational breakdowns and turn-taking patterns among children with LI differ as a function of classroom context. Eleven children (aged 7;10 to 9;5) were audio-recorded during four contexts in a special education classroom: Journal-writing Conference (teacher-student dialogue), Peer Play (two similarly impaired peers), Group Lesson (teacher-led with 3 to 6 students) and Sharing Time (monologue in front of the class). All data were transcribed and the various dimensions of language were coded. Frequencies and interactional patterns were analyzed and counted using various programs of CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000). Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to assess the effects of context across the various dimensions of communication. Language production differed as a function of context, with the highest rate and variability in Sharing Time, although the children participated at high rates across all contexts. They showed more self-monitoring in the two academic contexts of Journal-writing and Group Lesson, and few pauses with many interruptions in the Group Lesson. Error rates differed as a function of context (with Sharing Time showing the highest and Peer Play the lowest), except in the case of morphosyntactic and word-finding errors. Overall there were few breakdowns in communication; however speech errors that affected comprehensibility varied according to classroom context, occurring most frequently in relatively autonomous monologic discourse. Children's turn-taking also differed as a function of context, with more child responses and evidence of teacher control talk in the two academic contexts, and more assertive talk by children (initiations, elicitations, directives) in Peer Play. The strong role that context played in both group and individual performance suggests that clinicians and researchers cannot assume that a single measure of a child's language performance is representative of their competence. Furthermore, intervention must consider how individual differences such as personality, other impairments, the presence of a second language, etc., contribute to a child's communicative performance. |
