Maternal communication style with mentally retarded children.

Mothers' style of communicating with 1- to 3-year-old mentally retarded children was related to children's communication. Mother--child communication was coded to characterize maternal communicative functions, the relationship of mother and child communication to the topic of conversation, the modality and meaningfulness of children's communication, and the manner that mothers and children reciprocate to each others' communication. Six maternal style factors were identified: attentiveness, responsiveness, persistent requesting, child-orientation, quality of requests, and quality of information. The regression of communication style factors on children's communication indicated that children were more verbal and communicatively responsive when their mothers were responsive to children's communication and focused on child-oriented topics.