Dynamic contextual variables and the directives of persons with mental retardation.

We examined the ability of 14 persons with mental retardation and of 14 children without mental retardation to adjust the linguistic form of their directives as a function of their listener's affective state (happy or sad) and activity level (busy or idle). Directives were elicited by requiring the subjects to obtain toys from an adult listener. We found that both groups of subjects were sensitive to these dimensions of the communicative context. However, the directive forms used by the subjects with mental retardation were more imposing overall.