Mother–Child Joint Conversational Exchanges During Events: Linkages to Children's Memory Reports Over Time

This longitudinal study explores linkages between patterns of mother–child conversation as events unfold and children's subsequent event memory reports. Eighty-nine mother-child dyads took part in novel “adventures” in their homes when the children were 36 and 42 months old. In contrast to “low joint talk” dyads, the conversations of “high joint talk” dyads were characterized by a high proportion of children's correct responses to their mothers' Wh- questions, and a low proportion of failures to respond to these queries. Children in the high joint talk dyads reported more in memory assessments at 36 and 42 months than their low joint talk counterparts. The results point to specific forms of elaborative conversational interactions that may be especially important for successful remembering.