Subtypes of Directives that Used by Caregivers

According to Girolametto, Hoaken, Weitzman, and Lieshout (2000), there are three main subtypes of directives used by caregivers. These three subtypes are behavioral control, turn-taking control, and topic control. However, Girolametto et al. (2000) has added another two subtypes. These are behavioral control and conversational control. The aim of the study by Girolametto et al. (2000) is to measure teachers directives and measure the language productivity of a child. The result showed that teachers of toddlers used more attention calls in the book reading than the play dough. From the , it seems that the use of attention calls was less than the group management. This is because the interaction was during the . Moreover, the teacher-child interaction was almost conversational control. The teacher has used about 42 conversational control directives such as Wh-questions, conversational Y/N, and clarification questions. This result correlates with the Girolametto et al. (2000) study, which found out that teachers use the three questions types of conversational control more in the play-dough activity than in the book-reading context. The reason why both results correlate is that the teacher-child interaction was in . However, the teacher has used response control on fewer occasions and the most common use was commands rather than test questions or directive questions. This result differed from Girolametto et al. (2000) because it showed that the teacher used more of these two types than the other types such as choice questions or commands. From the teacher-child interaction result, the use of questions was significantly higher than the use of other types of direction strategies. This finding shows a relationship with the result of Girolametto and Weitzman (2002), which found out that numerous questions tend to be used more in the than in the book reading time. Additionally, the teacher has used expansion several times, and this result can be associated with the study by Girolametto and Weitzman (2002), which found out the use of expansion is higher in the play-dough activity than in the book reading time.

The MLU for the teacher should match the average child in a group (Girolametto et al., 2000). However, the teachers MLU was unusually high, around 5.9. This may be because the teacher has repeated the questions several times in different ways to get the child to talk. The teacher asked questions related to what the child was doing. The teacher asked the questions out of real interest, stimulating a discussion. The most appropriate types of questions are the . This is because they make children strive towards describing their thinking. For example, how can you tell?, How do you know? The teacher has used many open-ended questions in the conversation to develop the childs thinking. The teacher-child interaction was highly significant. However, in order to improve the interaction, the teachers use of language should be slow in pace. It should also be shorter and have fewer utterances (Girolametto, Hoaken, Weitzman & Lieshout, 2000). The recording sample has been impacted inadequately due to the background noise as well as the movement of the children observed. There were also many repetitions from the teacher to get the child to talk, which maybe because of the many interactions with other children. To improve the sampling, I would suggest making the recording in a small room to limit the childrens movement.