Scaffolding Early Dialogue: A Unified Account of Response Contingency in Child–Caregiver Interaction

Editorial reading guide · Independence

What happens if I make the next conversational turn easy for my child to take?

This article examines how caregivers time a response so a child can take a conversational turn. It gives readers a concrete setting in which to distinguish adult guidance from opportunities for a child to initiate or persist.

Who was studied?

Child–caregiver conversations from 40 language corpora covering more than 600 children.

Age / stage: Early childhood

Read with three questions

1. What does the article establish about how caregivers time a response so a child can take a conversational turn?
2. How was a contingent conversational response identified across different transcripts?
3. How closely does the population described here match the family or setting you have in mind? The population to compare is child–caregiver conversations from 40 language corpora covering more than 600 children.

Keep the limits in view

Conversational transcripts capture verbal exchanges and may miss gestures or other supports. The sampled corpora cannot represent every language environment.