Characteristics and Stages of Question-Answer Interaction Development in Normal Children

Abstract

We constructed a “Test of Question-Answer Interaction Development” and administered it to 165 normal children from 2 to 6 years of age. Qualitative analyses were made of their response utterances. The children age 2: 0–2: 5 characteristically showed no response or responses determined by nearby situations. Gradually the amount of utterances increased and responses became redundant in children age 2: 6–3: 5. The children of this stage often showed typical errors: responses bounded by their narrow experiences, responses influenced by association, and responses outside the topic. 4-year-old children seldom showed errors typical of this earlier age. They were able to keep to a topic and made well-regulated answers. Children age 5–6 considered the listener’s knowledge and offered adequate amounts of explanation. These results suggest that there are four developmental stages of communicative ability focusing on question-answer conversation: (a) 2: 0–2: 5 the stage of no response or responses determined by nearby situations; (b) 2: 6–3: 5: the stage influenced by personal expriences and associations; (c) 3: 6–4: 11: the stage in which the semantic network is built; and (d) 5: 0–6: 11: the stage of meta-communication. © 1994, The Japan Society of Logopedics and Phoniatrics. All rights reserved.