1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«In summary, the goal of the current study was to examine patterns of communication between IA [internationally adopted] children from China and their adoptive mothers and the relationships between adoptive mothers’ general language use and their use of following versus redirecting strategies and their children’s later vocabulary development.» (p. 6)

Questions/Hypothèses :
«Three specific questions motivated the study: (a) Are IA children from China delayed in acquiring the ability to engage in JA [joint attention]? (b) Do adoptive mothers interact differently with their children compared to birth mothers and, in particular, are they prone to using more redirecting strategies and talking more with their children? (c) Is adoptive mothers’ use of redirecting attention regulation strategies correlated with their children’s later vocabulary development?» (p. 6)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«Two groups of children and mothers participated: 10 children adopted from China and their French-speaking adoptive mothers and 11 monolingual French-speaking, nonadopted children and their French-speaking birth mothers.» (p. 6)

Instruments :
Questionnaires

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«The adoptive mothers talked significantly more with their children than did the CTL [control] mothers: when talk inside and outside of JA episodes was combined and also when only talk outside of JA episodes was considered. The type/token ratio of the adoptive mothers was smaller than that of the CTL mothers. This result could be misleading if it were interpreted as a sign that the IA mothers exhibited less lexical diversity in their interactions with their children compared to the CTL mothers. The number of different words (types) used by the IA and CTL mothers was similar. It was the total number of words (tokens) that differed. Thus, the type/token results indicate that the adoptive mothers were using more repetitions compared to the CTL mothers. […] [T]he adoptive mothers’ use of redirecting strategies at 15 months was significantly and positively correlated with their children’s subsequent expressive vocabulary at 20 months.» (p.19)