The Influence of the Dyadic Context on the Conversational and Linguistic Behavior of Its Members

The extent of resemblance in the communicative behavior between dyads that share common members was examined by using both linguistic and conversational measures. Fifteen triads of mixed-sex, same-age, and previously-acquainted children (aged 34 to 67 months) were observed in a laboratory playroom. Each child was paired with each of the two other members of the triad for two free-play situations, producing three dyads per triad. The interaction of each dyad was videotaped and a transcript was made of their conversation. Canonical correlation analyses, conducted with dyadic measures of the interactional nature and linguistic components of the children's conversations, were performed to assess (a) the degree of consistency within each dyad's interaction, and (b) the degree of association between dyads sharing a common member. These analyses were followed by an examination of the correlations for each of the separate dyadic measures. The results of these procedures indicate that although there was considerable consistency in the linguistic output of dyads within a 15 min interaction, there was no consistency across dyads that shared a common member. These results have important implications for the measurement of linguistic and conversational behavior in children because they demonstrate that observations of individual children with only one partner may provide unreliable estimates of the children's behavioral capabilities.