Item

Abstract

We investigated the relationship between mothers’ and children’s speech complexities and how this relationship is impacted by variations in social interaction settings. Forty five-year-old children and their mothers were observed in two conversational settings: A) looking at a textless picture book and B) playing with Playmobil figures. The conversation between each mother and child was recorded and measures were obtained for MLU (mean length of utterance), use of verbs, use of complex sentences, and use of direct objects by the children and the mothers. Mothers’ speech complexity during picture book reading correlated significantly with children’s speech complexity during both picture book reading and Playmobil playing. Conversely, there was no significant correlation between mothers’ speech complexity during Playmobil playing and children’s speech complexity during either picture book reading or Playmobil playing. These results suggest that a mother possibly adapts her speech complexity to match her child’s speech complexity when they interact in a more pedagogic-like setting (book reading) compared to a more playful setting (Playmobil playing). Another potential explanation for the result is that a mother’s speech complexity during picture book reading (but not during Playmobil playing) influences her child’s general productive speech complexity.