Social Turn-Taking of Children with Neuropsychiatric Impairments and Their Parents

Social interactional theory posits that child behavior and parent behavior are interdependent. Interactions that encourage reciprocity and balanced turn-taking are considered most conducive to child communication development. Children who have impaired communication development often exhibit frustration and a variety of aberrant behaviors. These behaviors may be, at least in part, because of a breakdown or imbalance in parent-child turn-taking, a form of social reciprocity. Parent-child turn-taking was examined in children exhibiting a variety of neuropsychiatric symptoms, including developmental delays and behavioral problems. Preadmission videotapes of 43 children and their parents (43 mothers and 21 fathers) were coded with respect to initiating and responding behaviors. Twenty-seven of the children were prelinguistic, and 16 were linguistic. An imbalance in parent-child reciprocity and turn-taking was noted in this sample: Parents initiated more frequently than children, and children responded to approximately half of parent initiations. There was a greater imbalance in prelinguistic children, evidenced by a significantly higher rate of mother initiating (p <. 01) and responding behaviors (p <. 08) as well as a significantly lower rate of child initiating behaviors (p <. 02). Implications for interventions focusing on the parent-child dyad and including fathers are discussed, as well as directions for further research.This study demonstrated an imbalance in parent-child turn-taking and reciprocity behaviors in a child neuropsychiatric population consisting of children with a variety of developmental delays. There was a greater imbalance, as evidenced by a significantly higher rate of initiating behaviors in parents, and a significantly lower rate of initiating by children, between prelinguistic children and their parents. A variety of evidence suggests that interventions that act to promote increased reciprocity result in increased balance in the parent-child dyad, promote language and social development in the child, and increase parental satisfaction. Most intervention programs focus on the mother, but interventions that focus on both parents or caretakers are needed.