The interactional dimensions of language therapy

This article distinguishes between adult- and child-centered intervention practices according to five interrelated dimensions of therapy context: the event, the agenda, the interactional lead, evaluation, and repair. To illustrate how these five dimensions could potentially manifest themselves during interaction, clinicians were asked to engage a child of their own choosing in both adult- and child-centered intervention. The present discussion focuses on a turn-by-turn analysis of an excerpt from one of the child-centered language therapy sessions. Analysis reveals that simply doing away with three-part quiz question sequences, eliminating explicit verbal evaluations of a child's communicative performance, and changing the function of repair does not necessarily result in a more child-centered interaction. To evaluate the child-centeredness oi intervention, one must understand the communicative relationships between speakers as they manifest themselves during ongoing sequences of interaction that are embedded in therapeutic events.