The Development of Communication: Changes with Age and Modeling
Grover J. Whitehurst · Child Development · 1976
WHITEHURST, GROVER J. The Development of Communication: Changes with Age and Modeling. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 473-482. 2 studies were conducted with a task allowing detailed examination of how information in stimulus arrays is captured in children's descriptions. Rather than conforming to a principle of minimal redundancy, communications become increasingly redundant over the early school years. Short messages, a minority at all ages, are based on a contrastive analysis of the referential field in older children. However, short descriptions by preschool and grade 1 children are often based on randomly selected attributes of a referent and, therefore, are incomplete and noninformative. The normative performance at the grade 1 level was compared with that of children given preliminary experience of listening and responding to the incomplete versus contrastive communication of an adult. Children imitate the communciation style of an adult without regard to its effects on their ability to respond correctly as a speaker. The implications for a role-playing analysis of communication development were discussed. Though children imitate aspects of a model's communication style, their methods of analysis of stimulus arrays are idiosyncratic, largely determined by a principle of least effort.