Shared narratives at home: stories, personal experiences and future accounts. Longitudinal and between situations differences

STEIN, A.; MENTI, A.; ARRÚE, J.; ROSEMBERG, C.

Conferencia; IASCL 2014; 2014

Internatonal Association for the Study of Child Language

This research aims to longitudinally analyze and compare a series of interactive situations that can promote the development of narrative discourse (storybook reading, past and future accounts) registered in the homes of middle-income children. Previous research has primarily analyzed mother-child interaction in story-reading and past accounts situations (McCabe et al.,2008; Nelson,1996). In this research, we also analyzed future accounts, which have been less studied (Hudson,2006). The data consists of 40 audio-recorded, induced situations of story-reading (12), past (14) and future accounts (14) registered at the homes of seven children (aged 2:6?3:6) from middle-income families. The analysis combines quantitative and qualitative methods, in order to describe the interventions of the participants that shape the discourse interactional construction, identify patterns of interaction as well as eventual longitudinal and between situations differences. The quantitative analysis showed similarities between the situations registered at 2:6 regarding the distribution of turns, the proportion of words said by the children and their interlocutors, and the mean length of the turns (MLT). Longitudinal differences were observed: children´s participation during story-reading situations increased, as well as the turns, the quantity of words, and the MLT in children and adults during the future accounts at 3:6.The qualitative analysis identified longitudinal differences. In the past accounts recorded at 3:6, the interventions of the participants focused on restoring the temporal sequence and the highpoint of the narrated events, as opposed to the exchanges at 2:6, when narratives took the format of an enumeration and description of events. During the future accounts, it was observed that at 3:6, the mothers referred to past and habitual events, anticipated particularities about the future event that they were discussing, and planned the event together with the child. The mothers at 2:6 were as contingent in the different type of situations as they were at 3:6.