Communication with friends and non-friend peers: An examination of dyadic connectedness across two contexts

Children’s peer interactions provide an important setting for their developing communication skills. The current study analyses connectedness – the topical coherence of children’s conversational turns – to explore how children coordinate their interactions across two contexts. The observed connected talk of 82 same-sex dyads (N = 152 children, 58.6% male, mean age = 6.79 years, SD = 0.38) during free-play and goal-directed contexts was coded. The rates of connected talk in relation to dyad sex (girl, boy) and friendship status (friends, non-friend peers) was modelled. There was a significantly higher rate of connectedness in the goal-directed compared to free-play context, which was qualified by a friendship status by context interaction. Subsequent simple effects analysis showed that only non-friend dyads engaged in significantly more connected talk during goal-directed compared to free-play context, with equivalent connectedness across context for friend dyads. These findings highlight the role of dyadic characteristics and contextual features for children’s interactions.