MOTHER-CHILD COMMUNICATION IN PRESCHOOLERS - THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTHERS EXTRACTION STYLE AND THEIR CHILDRENS EXPLANATION

Mother-child communication style in preschool children was investigated. After shown two kinds of animated stories, which differed in their complexity, five and six -year-old children explained their contents to their mothers, Adult dyads also performed the same task. Mothers talked much more than adult listeners, and the mother -child dyads frequently took turns. Mothers not only simply drew their children's utterances, but they made many questions to clarify them, These communication styles were quite similar in both stories. In spite of their efforts to understand, the mothers failed to construct coherent stories from their children's explanations in a complicated story. The conditions restricting the success of mother-child communications were discussed.