Promoting Children's Conversations During Play With Adult Prompts

Two interventions (environmental modification and adult prompting) were evaluated for promoting conversations between preschoolers with and without disabilities. Nine children (3 with and 6 without disabilities) participated. A multiple baseline design was used with three conditions: classroom baseline, theme boxes with restricted space and partners, and system of least prompts. The rates of conversations and the number of turns per conversation did not increase for all children with disabilities when they played with theme boxes with restricted space and partners. Use of the system of least prompts produced increases in their rates of conversations, the number of turns per conversation, and the rate but not percent of initiations without responses. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.