The development of listener-adapted communication by educable mentally impaired children

J. COMMUN. DISORD. 17 (1984), 371-384

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LISTENER-ADAPTED COMMUNICATION BY EDUCABLE MENTALLY IMPAIRED CHILDREN LYNN S. BLISS Wayne State University Department of Speech Communication, Detroit, Michigan

Theatre and Journalism

The listener-adapted communication strategies of educable mentally impaired and nonmentally retarded children were investigated. The children constructed goal directed messages to three pairs of targets (a happy and a sad boy, man, and woman). They were than asked to explain their communicative strategies: Did they alter their messages for the happy and sad targets? Ten mentally impaired children in the mental age levels of 6, 8, 10, and 12 were compared with their nonretarded peers of similar mental ages. The results revealed that age, listener, and group differences were evident as a function of the specific task the children were required to perform.

INTRODUCTION One requisite of successful communication is adapting messages to a listener. At an early age, children use simple communicative strategies to enable a listener to decode their messages. Gallagher (1977) demonstrated that children in mean length of utterance (MLU) stage 1 revized their utterances when a listener indicated noncomprehension of a message. Four-year-old children simplify their utterances when speaking to a 2year-old or to a doll (Sachs and Devin, 1976; Shatz and Gelman, 1973). Children also use politeness strategies in order to accomodate their message to a listener and obtain a goal (Bates, 1976; Bates and Silvern, 1977; James, 1978). These strategies are used increasingly by older children and vary according to the status of a listener. Children and adults adapt their messages in a variety of ways, especially when trying to persuade someone to do something (Alvy, 1973; Clark and Delia, 1976; Delia, Kline, and Burleson, 1979; Wood, Weinstein, and Parker, 1967). With increased age, children use more sophisticated strategies that take into account the attitudes, beliefs, and attributes of their listener. For example, Clark and Address correspondence Hall. Detroit, MI 48202.

to Lynn S. Bliss, Ph.D., Wayne State University, 525

0 1984by Elsevier Science Publishing Co., Inc. 52Vanderbilt Ave., New York, NY 10017

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L.S. BLISS

Delia (1975) and Delia, Kline, and Burleson (1979) found that children altered their communicative messages by using higher persuasive strategies with a stranger than with a familiar person. This shift in communication strategy suggests an awareness of the differences in listeners and an effort to accomodate these differences. Sophisticated strategies are characterized by social perspective-taking, the ability to make inferences about someone else and adapt a message accordingly. Two investigations have focused on the listener-adapted communication of nonretarded children using pictures as stimuli. Alvy (1973) presented pairs of pictures to children, aged 6-12 yr; in each set an individual differed according to one critical communication-related dimension. For example, there was a smiling and a frowning boy playing with toys. The children were requested to formulate a goal-directed message to both individuals in the set. In the above example, a child had to ask each boy to play with his toys. After the task was finished, the child was asked about the messages in order to determine if he/she was aware of and could explain the relationship between the listener’s characteristics and the communicative strategies that were used. The child’s spontaneous messages and explanations were scored within a hierarchical system. Alvy found that age was associated with significantly more sophisticated messages and complex explanations. Delia and Clark (1976) utilized this same approach but refined the procedures and the scoring in order to explore more fully the relationship between listener perceptions and the adaptation of communication strategies. Again, age was significantly associated with advanced explanations and communication tactics. They concluded that recognition of communication-relevant differences is a prerequisite to the adaptation of communicative behavior. In addition, they maintained that children need a sufficient level of cognitive development and social perception in order to formulate effective goal-directed strategies. There is a discontinuity, however, between perception of listener attributes and control over one’s communication. Some research in this area also has been done with language impaired children. They have been shown to be capable of adapting their messages to younger children (Fey, Leonard, and Wilcox, 1981). Language impaired children also use politeness forms in order to soften their messages, in part, as a function of their listener (Prinz, 1982; Prinz and Ferrier, 1983). The research of Prinz and Ferrier (1983) and Fey, Leonard, and Wilcox (1981) suggest that language impairment may be associated with some limitations in pragmatic ability. While the children exhibited overall listener sensitivity, their messages were not equal to those of younger children with the same MLU. The present investigation concerns itself with the adaptation of messages by educable mentally impaired children. Previous research in this area has focused on their persuasive messages to different targets. Weiss

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and Weinstein (1967) found that the mentally impaired children they studied did not alter their messages, regardless of whether or not the target was a best friend or an authority figure. This finding suggests that their retarded subjects did not engage in social perspective-taking, as no variations were detected in their messages to different listeners. Herman (1976), however, found that educable mentally impaired children adjusted their messages according to the listener, as did nonretarded children. Lower level persuasive strategies were associated with peers than with adults. He concluded that his retarded subjects were capable of adapting their messages to different listeners. The divergence in the results of these two investigations appears to be the result of methodologic differences. Weiss and Weinstein (1967) used institutionalized and noninstitutionalized adults and children; age and IQ were confounded in the samples. On the other hand, Herman’s sample (1978), consisted of noninstitutionalized loyear-old children. The purpose of the present investigation was to further study listeneradapted communication strategies as a function of mental age, retardation, and difference in listeners. Children from the mental age levels of 6, 8, 10, and 12 yr were selected for investigation in order to determine whether or not developmental trends in listener-adapted communicative strategies occur. Educable mentally impaired children were compared with nonretarded children of similar mental ages. Listener effects were investigated by having the children construct messages to two adults and one peer, in order to compare their content. The results of this investigation were expected to further our understanding concerning the range and flexibility of the communicative strategies available to educable mentally impaired children.

PROCEDURES Subjects Eighty children participated in this investigation; 40 were educable mentally impaired and 40 were nonretarded. The IQ range of the retarded children (derived from the WISC) was 50-74 (mean, 65). There were 10 children in each mental age level of 6, 8, 10, and 12 yr. The retarded children were enrolled in special education classes in public schools. The nonretarded children resided in similar districts. Their IQ scores were not available to the examiner. According to school records and teacher reports, however, they were functioning at grade level and had not been referred for any remedial programs. Their IQ scores ranged from 97 to 110. There were 10 children in each mental age level of 6, 8, 10, and 12 yr. All children exhibited normal speech, language, and hearing abilities,

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as reflected by an informal screening evaluation and the fact that no child was referred to or was receiving remedial speech and language services.

Procedure This study is modeled on the research of Alvy (1973) and Delia and Clark (1976). Each child was shown one of a set of three pictures. One pair showed a happy and a frowning boy playing with either planes or cars (a non-communication-relevant difference). The second set depicted a happy and a frowning man standing by an open door wearing either brown or black shoes. The final set consisted of a smiling or a frowning woman with her hands in different positions. The order of presentation of the sets was randomized for each child. The children were interviewed individually and were tape recorded. Initially, the child was asked to tell the investigator if there was any difference in the two illustrations placed in front of him/her. If the child answered affirmatively, he/she was asked to describe the difference. If a non-communication-relevant difference was selected, the child was given one more chance by answering the question, “Is there anything else different in these two pictures?” Regardless of how the child responded, the next set of questions was presented. The child was asked if a difference in the two targets would make a difference in how he/she asked each of the listeners for a specific favor. Then the child was requested to formulate a goal-directed message to each person (listener) in the illustrations. The goals to the targets were identical to those of Alvy (1973) and Delia and Clark (1976), as follows: (1) Ask the boy to let you play with his toys, (2) persuade the man to retrieve your ball from his back yard, and (3) ask the lady to let you have some ice cream. After the tasks were completed, the child was questioned about the messages. The child was again asked to identify the differences in the pictures and to state if the differences would intluence how he/she would speak to the targets (with no differences stated, the interview ended). The typical exchange proceeded in the following manner: 1. What is the difference in these two pictures? 2. Would that make a difference in how you would ask them to: (play with his toys, get your ball, give you some ice cream)? 3. How would you ask this one (alternated pleasant and mean target)? 4. How would you ask this one? 5. Was there a difference in how you asked them? If so, what was it? 6. Do you think he (she) would: (let you play with his-toys, get your ball, give you some ice cream)? 7. If not, why wouldn’t he/she do what you asked?

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If those were his/her reasons, wanted?

The questions

375

what could you say to get what you

were identical for each child.

Coding and Reliability The children’s responses were scored in three ways. First, the spontaneous messages to each listener were coded according to the following hierarchy (Delia and Clark, 1976): 1. Identical messages to the two pictures of a set: “Can you let me play with your toys?” “Can you let me play with your toys?” 2. Messages differing in lexical or syntactic forms that were not relevant to the task: “Can you let me play with your toys?” “May I play with your toys?” 3. Messages differing in a minor adaptation: “Can I play with your toys?” “Please may I play with your toys?” 4. Messages differing in an elaborated adaptation “Can I play with your toys? “Can we trade toys? I’ll bet you’ll like my toys and you won’t be grouchy any more. The two messages in each set received a score. The messages were coded by the investigator and then compared with the scores of an independent coder who analyzed two protocols from each age level for both subject groups. The percentage of agreement was 96%. The interviews were then scored for the prompted messages. These were the last messages the child gave in response to the question, “If that was (or those were) the reason(s), what could you say to get him/her to . . .?” (question 8 in the typical exchange). This prompted message was compared with the spontaneous message to the pleasant person that the child constructed earlier (responses to questions 3 or 4). The prompted message was considered to reflect the child’s greatest effort at adaptation of communication. The same hierarchy as with the spontaneous messages was utilized in scoring the prompted messages. Reliability was 92% agreement for the 16 protocols scored for the spontaneous messages. The children’s explanations of their communication strategies were scored following the hierarchy devized by Delia and Clark (1976). A complete description with examples is presented in Appendix 1. In general, this hierarchy reflects the increasing capacity for the perception of communication-relevant aspects

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pertaining to listeners, recognition that these differences are important for communication, and utilization of these differences when formulating goal-directed messages. The hierarchy describes the growth of emergent perceptual, cognitive, and communicative skills. Reliability of the coding of 16 protocols was 92%. RESULTS The messages that the children constructed fall into two categories, spontaneous and prompted. The means and SD for the spontaneous messages are presented in Table 1. The means are relatively low, considering the maximum score was 7 for each listener. No discernible age or group trends appear to be evident in the data. A three-factor analysis of variance across the three listener tasks, two groups, and four ages was used to analyze the data (Winer, 1971). The results revealed that only listener differences were significant, F(2,72) = 5.59, p < 0.01. The means for the main effect of listeners were: boy, 1.90; lady, 2.00; and man, 2.28. The Tukey (a) post hoc procedure (Winer, 1971) identified the source of significance to be between the boy versus the man (p < 0.01). The means and SD for the prompted messages are presented in Table 2. The low mean values and relatively large SD suggest that the distributions are positively skewed, especially for the 6-yr-old nonretarded group. Age trends are noticeable in the data, but are different for both groups. The largest difference in the mean scores for the groups was between the mental ages of 10 and 12 for the retarded children and between 6 and 8 for the nonretarded children across all three listeners. The nonretarded children outperformed their retarded peers at every mental age level except the youngest age, where the reverse was evident. Table 1.

Means and SD for the Spontaneous Listener-Adapted Messages by Mentally Impaired (MI) and Nonmentally Impaired Children (NMI) at Four Mental Age Levels* Situations Man

Boy Group/Mental MI

NM1

Age 6 8 10 12 6 8 10 12

Lady

??

SD

x

SD

x

SD

1.60 1.70 1.70 1.80 2.20 1.90 2.10 2.20

1.07 0.95 0.95 0.92 0.92 0.99 1.10 1.03

1.90 2.10 2.30 1.90 2.30 2.20 2.80 2.70

0.87 0.87 0.82 0.74 0.95 1.40 1.23 1.06

1.60 2.00 2.10 1.80 1.90 1.80 2.40 2.40

0.84 1.05 1.10 0.92 0.87 1.31 1.17 1.17

* Maximum score for each situation is 4.

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Table 2. Means and SD for the Prompted Listener-Adapted Messages by Mentally Impaired (MI) and Nonmentally Impaired Children (NMI) at Four Mental Age Levels* Situations

Man

BOY

Group/Mental Age MI

NM1

6 8 10 12 6 8 10 12

Lady

R

SD

x

SD

x

SD

2.00 1.80 2.10 2.40 0.60 2.90 2.80 3.20

1.15 1.48 1.91 1.65 0.97 1.60 1.62 1.47

2.00 1.90 1.70 2.80 1.50 3.30 2.80 3.40

1.25 1.37 2.23 1.62 1.64 1.25 1.93 1.60

1.80 1.90 1.70 3.30 1.10 3.10 2.90 3.00

1.03 1.29 1.57 1.06 1.37 1.29 1.67 1.49

* Maximum score for each situation is 4.

A three-factor analysis of variance was computed across the listeners, groups, and ages. Only age was significant, F (3,72) = 4.84~ < 0.01, as well as the interaction between age and group, F (3,72) = 3.37 p < 0.01. There was no difference between the groups. The Tukey (a) post hoc procedures revealed that all the ages were significantly different from each other (p < 0.01);the means were: 6 yr, 1.50; 10 yr, 2.33; 8 yr, 2.47; and 12 yr, 3.01. The interaction of age and groups (MI, mentally impaired children; NMI, nonmentally impaired children) for within group differences are presented in Figure 1. The means are: 6 yr, MI 1.70 and NM1 1.07; 8 yr, MI 1.87 and NM1 3.10; 10 yr, MI 1.83 and NM1 2.83; and 12 yr, MI 2.83 and NM1 3.20. The differences between the groups are sign&ant (p < 0.05)at each age level except for the oldest group. Note should be taken that the MI children outperformed their NM1 peers at the youngest age group; the reverse was evident for the age levels of 8 and 10. Examining the effects of age within the MI children showed that the 8and IO-yr-old levels were alike (x’s = 1.87 and 1.83, respectively) and significantly lower (p < 0.05)than the 6 and 12 yr level (X’s = 1.70 and 2.83, respectively)_, which did not differ. NM1 6-yr-olds performed significantly lower (X = 1.07) than all other ages, which did not differ. The children’s explanations of the messages were also evaluated. The means and SD are presented in Table 3. As can be seen, the NM1 children achieved better scores than their MI peers. Age trends were more apparent for the NM1 than for the MI children. A three-factor analysis of variance revealed that only groups was significant F (1,72) = 10.02 (p < 0.01). The MI children produced lower level explanations (x = 9.08) than the NM1 children (x = 11.06) across all three listeners.

378

(3.2 10)

i(2.83)

8

6 Mental

(2.83

12

10 Ages

1. Listener-adapted communication scores for prompted messages by mentally impaired (MI) and nonmentally impaired (NMI) children at four mental ages.

Figure

Table 3. Means and SD for the Explanations

Mentally Impaired (MI) and Nonmentally Mental Age Levels*

of Listener-Adapted Messages by Impaired Children (NMI) at Four Situations Man

Boy Group/Mental MI

NM1

Age 6 8 10 12 6 8 10 12

Lady

x

SD

x

SD

x

SD

2.50 3.30 3.10 3.10 3.30 3.30 4.00 4.60

1.08 1.06 1.29 1.29 1.06 1.57 1.49 1.26

2.60 3.40 3.60 3.00 3.50 3.60 3.70 4.20

1.17 0.84 0.97 1.41 0.49 1.87 1.33 0.92

3.10 3.10 3.40 2.60 3.50 3.50 4.80 4.40

1.20 0.88 1.26 1.43 1.18 0.71 1.48 1.78

* Maximum score for each situation is 7.

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Table 4. Total Percentage of Congruency Responses for Spontaneous Messages and Explanations Across Three Listener Situations by Mentally Impaired (MI) and Nonmentally Impaired Children (NMI) at Four Mental Age Levels Group

MI Mental Age

Spontaneous

NM1

Explanations

Spontaneous

Explanations 17 0 3 17

6

17

7

36

8 10 12

33 17 10

30 23 33

33 3 20

One additional analysis was completed after the responses were scored. It was noted that a number of the children acted mean to the frowning stimulus and nice to the pleasant stimulus. This was evident in their spontaneous messages, as well as their explanations. The incidence of such consistency, called “congruency” responses, was determined. The percentages of congruency responses for both groups are presented in Table 4. There were generally more congruency responses in the spontaneous messages than in the explanations, especially for the NM1 children. No discernible age trends are evident in these data.

DISCUSSION The results highlight unique differences in the spontaneous and prompted messages, as well as the children’s explanations of their communication strategies. Listener differences were revealed in the spontaneous messages, while age differences and the interaction of age and group characterized the prompted messages. Only group differences were evident in the explanations. A discussion of these results follows. The children’s spontaneous messages revealed that they produced the least adaptive message to the boy and the woman, in contrast with the man. They treated the boy as someone they know and the woman as their mother, but the man was considered to be a stranger. Previous research has shown that listener familiarity affects the elaboration of communication messages, in particular, persuasive ones (Clark and Delia, 1976; Delia, Kline, and Burleson, 1979; Wood, Weinstein, and Parker, 1967). Wood, Weinstein, and Parker (1967) found that nonretarded children simplified their messages to a friend or a mother as opposed to a teacher. They suggested that the children assumed that the more familiar individuals would be expected to honor the request, whereas, more energy was (an increased number of communicative strategies) needed with the

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teacher, because the response could not be anticipated. Clark and Delia ( 1976) and Delia, Kline, and Burleson (1979) added the concept of predictability to the difference in message construction according to listener familiarity. Their position is: The more familiar the listener, the more predictable will his/her responses be, the less need for message elaboration. In this study, the mentally impaired children showed listener sensitivity by responding differently to the target stimuli, similar to the findings of Herman (1981). It is interesting to observe that both groups performed similarly and without any age effects. Apparently the task superceded both group and age factors. In the prompted messages, age and the interaction between age and group resulted in significant differences. Age differences have been reported in the previous literature with respect to listener-adapted messages (Alvy, 1973; Delia and Clark, 1977; Flavell et al., 1968). Growth in communicative development is well documented during this age span. The order of development for the children in this investigation was not in chronologic sequence (6, 10, 8, and 12 yr). No immediate explanation for the reversal of ages 8 and 10 is found. The differences were statistically significant and were consistent across groups. The results of this study show that growth will continue past 12 yr, as a plateau was not reached. The data revealed that at the 6 yr mental age level the retarded children outperformed their nonretarded peers for the prompted messages. This finding suggests that chronologic age may play a more important role in children’s early communicative development than mental age. At later stages, the effect of chronologic age may be diminished. Kamhi (1982) found that on the Piagetian task of mental displacement, retarded children of a mental age of 6 yr performed better than a matched group of nonretarded children. He attributed their success to the factors of additional age and school-related experiences. Social experiences also may have functioned to increase their scores in this investigation. The results of this investigation, as well as others (Kamhi, 1981; Kamhi and Johnston, 1982; Leahy, Balla, and Zigler, 1964) suggest that mental age might be an insufficient indicator or predictor of the performance of mentally impaired children. Social, motivational, and emotional factors also will affect performance. Group differences were apparent regarding the nature of the explanations the children provided concerning their communicative strategies. The retarded children produced lower level explanations than the nonretarded children. The task requires abstraction skills. Furth and Milgram (1965) found that educable mentally retarded children have difficulty in verbalizing concepts. The relatively poor performance by the retarded children in this investigation may reflect their impaired ability to verbalize the relatively abstract concepts of communicative choices. In addition,

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the explanation task is a metapragmatic one, in that awareness of communication is required in order to describe one’s strategies. Bates (1976) suggested that the ability to explain or reason metapragmatically appears to develop differently from comprehension or production of pragmatic skills. Explanation ability may lag behind performance measures; the retarded children in this investigation demonstrated this principle of development. The absence of age differences in the children’s explanations warrants further investigation, as previous research has reported significant trends in this area (Alvy, 1973; Delia and Clark, 1977). Inspection of the means reveals generally even scores throughout the age range. The questions asked of the children may not have tapped their potential, particularly at the older age levels. One reason that the hierarchy failed to show age effects lies in the difference in the interviews of Delia and Clark (1977) and this investigation. The former experimenters utilized a looser interview format and probed the children extensively (Delia, 1981). In this manner, the examiners possibly were able to elicit a higher level of response than with a fixed format of questions. In the present investigation, the uniform protocol of the interviews precluded individualized probing and, thus, did not permit the opportunity for higher level explanations. The congruency responses appear to be indicative of a simple unrefined strategy or reasoning, a “tit-for-tat” tactic. The child using a congruency response also may have assumed failure by the mean individual and, therefore, anticipated a nasty response and became mad first. The occurrence of congruency responses has not been reported previously in the literature concerning listener-adapted communication. This communicative strategy should be explored in further research. The results of this investigation have pointed out some interesting facets regarding the pragmatic ability of educable mentally impaired children. However, naturalistic studies also need to be conducted to further explore the listener-adapted behavior of retarded children. Educable mentally impaired children show an ability to adapt their messages to different listeners. They are limited, however, in their ability to verbalize or explain their communicative strategies. Mental age cannot be used as the sole indicator of performance by retarded children. Socialization and motivation also will affect their behavior (Leahy, Balla, and Zigler, 1982; Zigler, 1964). Further research is necessary to determine the relationship between cognition and social cognition with respect to the communication strategies of mentally impaired individuals. Appreciation is extended who generously assisted

to Doris V. Allen, Ruth Ann Clark, the investigator in this project.

Jesse Delia, and William

Leith

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Bates. E. and Silvern, L. (1977). Social adjustment J. Commun. 27:104-111.

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Clark, R. A. and Delia, J. G. (1976). The development of functional persuasive skills in childhood and early aldolescence. Child Development 47: 1008-1014. Delia, J. G. (1981). Personal communication. Delia, J. G., Kline, S. L., and Burleson, B. R. (1979). The development of persuasive communication strategies in kindergarten through twelfth graders. Comm.

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Fey, M., Leonard, L., and Wilcox, K. (1981). Speech-style modifications guage-impaired children. J. Speech Hear. Res. 46:91-97.

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Flavell, J. H., Botken, P. T., Fry, C. L., Wright, J. W., and Jarvis, P. E. (1968). The Development

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Herman, M. S. (1978). The mother-child interaction, social competence and locus of control as correlates of the interpersonal competence of educable mentally retarded and normal children. (Unpublished master’s thesis, Wayne State University). James, S. L. (1978). The effect of listener age and situation on the politeness children’s directives. J. Psycholing Res. 7:307-317.

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Prinz, P. M. (1982). An investigation of the comprehension and production of requests in normal and language-disordered children. J. Commun. Dis. 15:7594.

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Sachs, J. and Devin, J. (1976). Young children’s use of age-appropriate styles in social interaction and role-playing. J. Child Lang. 3:81-98.

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Appendix

1.

1. No communication-relevant difference in the two listeners (targets) is represented even when it is explicitly asked for. “This man has gray shoes and this man has white shoes.” 2. The child represents a communication-relevant difference in the listeners, but is unable to indicate the implication of the difference for his message. “This man looks like he’s a little mad but this man is happy.” 3. The child both recognizes a communication-relevant difference in the listeners and sees that the difference has implications for his/her message. The child sees the implication only in terms of a prediction of failure by one of the listeners and cannot justify the prediction. “This man would probably go out and get the ball and (pointing to the other picture) he would not.” difference in the lis4. The child recognizes a communication-relevant teners, sees that the difference has implications for his/her communication, and can articulate the reason for the prediction of failure . “This man would have gone to get my ball and this man would have said, “No.” (Why?) Because this man looks like he’s a little madder than this man.” 5. The child’s explanation represents an emergent need for listeneradaption, but the explanation is vague or ambiguous. “I’d ask them pretty much the same but kind of different.” 6. The child’s explanation includes an explicit statement concerning the need for listener-adapted communication, but the statement is global and general. “I’d ask the mean man nicely and the other man normally.”

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7. The child’s explanation indicates a simple description of the listeneradapted communication. “You’d have to be nicer to the nasty one than to the one who is nice . . . with the nasty man, you could be nicer, with a different voice.” 8. The child’s explanation includes an elaborated description of the listener-adapted communication. “With the grumpy, mean man you’d be afraid to ask but you could get him to get the ball by being nice. You’d change your tone of voice and you’d probably need to blame it on someone else; tell him that you were playing with some kids and they threw it over the fence by accident. But with the nice one, you could come right up and say, “Can I get my ball out of the back yard?”