Poster #34 - Child-Teacher Conversations in Inclusive Preschool Classrooms

• In Event: Poster Session 20

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Turn-taking between young children and caregivers is an important contributor to children’s cognitive and language development (Gratier et al., 2015; Romeo et al., 2018). However, little is known about the extent and impact of turn-taking in preschool contexts (Perry et al., 2018; Leech & Rowe, 2021).
This study leverages the automated identification of conversations and measurement of turn-taking between children and teachers in three inclusive preschool classrooms to investigate variation in the number of child-teacher conversations, the number of turns that characterize these conversations, and the type of activity in which these conversations unfold. We investigate whether children’s rate of turn-taking with teachers is associated with activity type, children’s special education eligibility classification, or their assessed language skills.
METHOD
Data for this study came from 42 children (52% female; 91% White; 83% Hispanic; Mage=50.0 months, SD=6.37) served in 3 classrooms in 2 public schools in a large school district in the southeastern U.S. All 3 classrooms included both children with typical development (TD) and children identified via their Individualized Education Program (IEP) as children with autism (ASD). One classroom also included children whose IEP indicated Developmental Delay (DD).
Continuous audio recordings of teachers and children were obtained through the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) system. On each day of data collection, a research team member coded classroom activities categorized as structured (e.g. circle time) vs. unstructured (e.g. general play). Data were collected on 5 occasions across the school year. LENA defines a conversation as a sequence of turns bounded by 5 or more seconds without interaction; turns are defined as any alternation in adult-child speech with < 5 seconds between speaker vocalizations. Multiturn conversations were defined as those with >=4 turns (Cabell et al., 2015). For each child, we calculated the mean number of child-teacher conversations, both multiturn and non-multiturn, experienced per class session. Children’s language abilities were assessed with the Preschool Language Scales, 5th Edition (PLS; Zimmerman et al., 2011). In our main analysis, we used the rate per hour of child-teacher conversations, the number of turns per conversation, and activity type.
RESULTS
Across all children, the mean per-session number of conversations with teachers was 48 (range 27-90). On average, 16% of children’s conversations with teachers were multiturn (range 3%-34%). Figure 1 displays the data by classroom.
Multi-level models predicting each child’s rate of LENA-identified turns on each observation from type of activity, child’s IEP-related classification and child’s total PLS standard score indicated that classroom was associated with 43.6% of the variance in turn counts. Across classrooms, children experienced lower turn count rates during unstructured activities than during structured activities (see Figure 2). There were no significant associations of children’s IEP-related classification or PLS score with turn-count.
CONCLUSION
Though all children experienced at least some conversational exchanges with teachers, especially during structured activities, multiturn conversations were infrequent. Study findings suggest that there are underutilized opportunities, especially during unstructured activities, for teachers to engage preschool students in one-on-one conversations that can be tailored to individual children’s interests and developmental needs.

Authors

• Batya Elbaum, University of Miami
  Presenting Author

• Lynn K Perry, University of Miami

• Elena Fernandez, University of Miami

• Yudong Tao, University of Miami

• Regina Fasano, University of Miami

• Laura Vitale, University of Miami

• Daniel Messinger, University of Miami