Mother-child dialogues: a comparison of normal and language impaired children.

This study explored similarities and differences in the dialogue of mother-child dyads with normal and language impaired children. The dialogue code used in this study assessed the child's ability to participate and sustain dialogue, and the mothers' ability to adjust to their children's level of functioning in discourse. It was found that: Language impaired children are not as skilled as younger normal language learning children of the same language stage in their ability to participate and maintain conversation; and that mothers of both normal and language impaired children adjust their language to meet the needs of their conversational partners. Implications for the language impaired mother-child dyad are discussed.