Semiotics of interacting with young children

European Journcl of Psychology of Education1993, Vol. VIII, n? 4, 473-486© 1993, I.S.PA

Semiotic Mediation in Guiding InteractionsWith )bung Children: The Role ofContext and Communication Handicapon Distanciation in Adult Discourse

Michel DdeauEva Gand.onVeronique ThburetUniversite de Rennes 2, France

Thispaperpays attention to two factors often neglected in the studiesof instructional or guidance interaction: the specijity of the child asinterlocutor and the constraints exerted by the properties of the taskson the semiotic means used to guide the child. Following Sigel's'distanciation hypothesis' we have studied the 'distancing' characteristicsof the adult's discourse adressed to the child in two groups of dyads,one with deaf (N = 5), the other with hearing children (N = 7) agedaround 24 months, in two tasks: Symbolic Play and Picture - Bookreading. The main resultsindicate a strong effect of the tasks, SP allowingmore distanciation than PB for both categories. Ii-dyads show fewdifferences in SP task but less ability to share references in Picture-Bookreading. It appears also that with such young children, the distancingpotential might be conveyed by the forms and pragmatic functions andnot only by the semantic components of adult's utterances.

The central thesis of Vygotsky's theory is that higher forms of mental activity developby the means of 'mediation processes'. In that theory, 'mediation' has a general and deepanthropological meaning. Work is considered as the major form of mediation that not onlychanges Nature, but also transforms and, literally, 'humanizes' Man. Indeed, working is actingfor an end that is not one's own, that is not devoted to one's own 'natural' instincts, but

This research has been supported by a grant of the Institut National de 1a Recherche Medicale (INSERM) n? eRE901102.

474 M. DELEAU, E. GANDON & V. TABURET

is in relation to an idea, to a non-biological, a social end: thus, mediation is from the beginningan interpersonal process framed by social organization.

This first main idea has to be completed by a second one coming from the Hegeliananalysis of the first forms of social division of labor. They involve a social separation betweenthe functions of planning and supervision (what the Master does), and practical execution(what the Slave does). In advanced societies, the two roles are played by the same actor. Similarly,the development of Higher Psychological Processes follows a line that goes from interpersonalguided activity to an autonomous planned and executed one. The 'general law of mentaldevelopment', even quoted by Vygotsky from P. Janet, is rooted in this general philosophicalframe. There is an anthropological necessity to analyze interactional and interpersonal processesin the mastery of Higher Mental Processes.

This general analysis has a psychological translation. The first thesis gave birth to thenotion of semiotic means as 'psychological tools' that parallels that of material tools andallows to extend to Higher Mental Processes the analysis of mediation of the material world.Indeed any process needs an instrument, and semiotic means constitute for Vygotsky the maininstrument of mediation, the 'psychological tools' by which Higher Mental Processes areelaborated. From a developmental perspective, one should say that the development of higherforms of mental activity arises from the appropriation by the child of the semiotic devicesthat allow both to represent states of the world and to regulate interpersonal interactions.Among them, language plays a major role on both cognition and communication by virtueof its semiotic properties. The concepts of 'Zone of Proximal Development' and of 'Instruction'have been introduced to state on the ontogenetic plane the second aspect of the anthropologicalanalysis of mediation: the child is able to participate in activities he doesn't yet master underthe condition that it is shared with a more expert partner, and, complementarily, adults (ormore expert peers), offer the chiild 'instructions' that help him/her to engage in and mastersome parts of the activity.

These general claims have given a new impetus to functional-developmental analysis.Nevertheless, while offering new ways to analyze psychological development, they leave manyquestions unanswered to which recent developmental research contributed although oftenreformulating them, designing new concepts to fit different functions.

Thus, 'routines' or 'tutoring interactions' have been described (Wood, Ross, & Bruner,1976; Ratner & Bruner, 1978; Wertsch, Dowley, Budwig, & MacLane, 1980; Deleau, 1985),in which two partners (either an adult or a more experienced peer) engage in a joint activity.Several general functions of the tutor have been largely documented since this pioneering work(Deleau, 1990). The first is responsiveness. The tutor's acts are contingent to the child's bothtemporally and cognitively, especially concerning the difference between what the child hasdone and what was required by the task at that moment (Wood & Middleton, 1975; Wood,Ross, & Bruner, 1976; Ochs, Schieffelin, & Platt, 1979; Wertsch et al., 1980; Rogoff, Malkin,& Gilbride, 1984; Valsiner, 1984; Pecheux, 1990).

The second function is one of framing the child's activity. Under focus are especiallymetacognitive interventions by which the tutor analyzes explicitely the main characteristicsof the situation or of those of the child's actions, reformulates the goals, the reasons of failureand so forth (Heckhausen, 1987; McNaughton and Leyland, 1990).

Lastly, the third function concerns the regulation of joint activity. It has to do with suchthings as the tutor doing the task himself instead of the child or, on the contrary, limitingthe number of degree of freedom of the task, acting in order to help the child being successfulin doing himself a subtask. Or with direct or indirect means of controlling the child's activity(Wertsch and Sammarco, 1988).

Depending on the difference between what is required by the task and what the capacitiesof the child are , the relative importance of the three functions is not the same: when thedistance is great, the first and the third ones are more important; as the child becomes moreautonomous in the situation, the second one takes precedence, helping the child to 'takedistances' or to 'go beyond' the here and now of the situation.

SEMIOTIC MEDIATION IN GUIDING INTERACTION 475

Language appears to playa major role both as a mean of communication and as a semioticdevice, for the child and the adult. Many research has been devoted to the study of languageacquisition by the child. They indicate that the language adressed by the adult to the childis of prominent importance, and even, they build their developmental analysis on thetransformation of language adressed to children as these ones become more experts.

This constitute a second major trend on which Vygotsky's conception has been extendedin the last years. A first line of analysis comes from the reexamination of Vygotsky's semioticconception (Wertsch, 1985, 1991). As M. Hickmann (1978) observes, while Vygotsky assumesthe general claim that private speech is a result of interiorisation of social speech, he didnot develop the 'how' of such an analysis. Pragmatic and discursive aspects of speech adressedto the child while solving a problem offer appropriate means. The analysis of requests ordirectives for instance (Hickmann, 1978; Wertsch & Hickmann, 1978) shows one first dimensionthat is the degree to which the comprehension of an utterance implies the understanding ofthe overall goal of the task. Goal-dependent utterances are more difficult than goal-independentones which require simply to use an automatized general routine, for instance to look at thereferent. An other dimension is the use of non verbal procedures in helping to understandthe message: depending on the existence or not of a non-verbal deictic (pointing) the samerequest ('now, what is next?') can be qualified as goal-dependent (no pointing) or goalindependent (pointing of one piece). In the latter case, the request is nevertheless more goalbinded than a question like 'What color is that?' and can be expected to playa differentrole in later problem-solving activity, confronting the child to plan and organize subroutinesin the task execution.

A second line of extending Vygotsky's analysis focuses on the proper cognitive functionsof mediation exerted by language. It is illustrated by the 'distanciation hypothesis' (Sigel, 1982).The concept has been introduced 'to denote the psychological separation of the person fromthe immediate, ongoing present; (1982, p, 50). It leads to analyze the statements of the adultsfrom the point of view of their distancing potential: low level distancing demands merely intendto focus the child's attention on something present or to offer him a label; medium leveldemands intend to analyze the given situation (for instance looking for similarities or differencesbetween objects); finally, high level demands push him to go beyond the givensituation (displacedreferences, alternative solutions, imaginary actions...).

In that conception, the use of distancing strategies is crucial for the child's accessingto high level mental operations. It has been shown that there is a positive correlation betweenthe cognitive level of children and the frequency of use of medium and high level distancingstrategies in the family (Sigel, 1982; Sigel & McGilIicudi-Delisi, 1984). Recently, Palacios,Gonzalez, and Moreno (1992) studied in that perspective 68 dyads with 22 month-old childrenin a task of tridimensional construction. The results confirm the validity of Sigel's generalpredictions. The highest performing children are to be found in dyads where the mother usesmore verbal instructions, and less physical actions in controlling the child's behaviour. However;as the children are quite young, there are not so much medium or high level distanciationdemands. In that case it is the number of questions (whatever their distancing level) that iscorrelated with the children's cognitive and verbal performance.

Such studies on discursive and cognitive aspects of language used by the adults havebroadened the empirical basis of the Vygotskianperspective. Nevertheless, they leave still openedmany questions, two of which we turn to now. While considering first general processes, mostof the empirical studies share the tacit assumption that the language adressed to the childdepends for the main part on personal or cultural characteristics of the mothers, consequently,they do not take into consideration the semiotic properties of the specific situation in whichthey analyze language. Secondly, they have been scarcely interested in the characteristics ofthe child as a communication partner. In the following we will focus on these two issues.

In most of the research, the tasks within which interactions are studied are the same:free play with or without objects (Labrell, 1992), picture-book reading (Ninio & Bruner, 1978;Palacios, et aI., 1992); jigsaw puzzles (Wertsch et aI., 1980; McNaughton & Leyland, 1990);

476 M. DELEAU, E. GANDON & V. TABU RET

embedding forms (Heckhausen, 1987); tower building (Wood & Middleton, 1975; Wood, Ross& Bruner, 1976), are the most common. They have been chosen considering general criteria.They are adapted to the general level of development of preschool children and are not unknownto the adults who often willingly interact. Other considerations are more practical ones: childrenare well motivated by such tasks, the tasks make it easy to observe verbal and non verbalbehaviour in adults and children, and so forth. As each research has it own's tasks and looksfor the most general properties of tutoring interactions, there is an implicit assumption thatthey are equivalent considering the interaction and particularly the type of adult discoursethey allow.

Such an assumption is hardly acceptable. The means to communicate are not independentof the specific contexts in which they are nested. Indeed, in a task of embedding forms, theadult faces the problem of practically guiding the child's action; in a paper-folding task, thesequential constraints are prominent, while in a 'reading picture-book' task, the main problemis not to 'pilot' the child's activity but to share meaning on what cannot be so easily shownby pointing and has to be 'spoken'.

A second distinction has to be made considering the type of semiotic materials proposedto the child: a geometric form to embed in an appropriate hole is a 'real object' in itself,but a picture-book leads to talk about images, about two-dimensions representations of a threedimensional reality; and playing with puppets imply the ability to understand what they standfor. To engage himself in an interaction the child has to understand that that particular imageor figure 'stands for' something else. The idea here is that a given task conveys its propersemiotic constraints that apply on discourse processes both from a cognitiveand a communicativeperspective. The idea is not a new one in itself, an author such Sigel for instance observesthat classifications and memory problems are easier for lower class black preschoolers withreal objects than with pictures (1970). He also refers to task's factors as being important (1982,1983) when he states that 'the task in which the parent and the child were engaged appearedto be the most salient dimension along which parental behaviors varied' (1982, p. 64).Nevertheless, his subsequent analysis turns on the relative inter-tasks permanence of parentsattitudes and behaviour and the relationships between parent's teaching strategies and child'soutcomes. Thus, although it is not a new idea, it has been scarcely taken into account inempirical research and the first aim of this paper is to study the effect of the semiotic materialused in a task on the adult's discourse in terms of cognitive (here 'distancing') characteristics.

The second issue concerns the effect of the characteristics of the child as a communicationpartner. Indeed, most of the research carried on the Vygotskian perspective share the implicitassumptions that a) causality operates in one direction: from adult's behaviours towards thechild's psychological development and b) the most important factor to be taken into considerationis the level of development of the child facing the task. They scarcely consider the specificitiesof the child as a communication partner.

The most difficult problem indeed is to distinguish between the child's level of competencein the task and his level of competence as a communication partner. The study of childrenwith deficiencies offers on that point interesting opportunities that have been explored by severalstudies.

Although interactional routines between children with deficiencies and their parents aregenerally well fitted to the child's overall cognitive development (Bremer, 1985), it has beenshown that play interactions are often altered. Parents of deficient children often ignore suchevents, or transform them in didactic exercises. They have a general tendency to overcontrolthe child's activity and to inhibit the normal processes by which children improve their capacityto master new skills and construct their competence motivation (Jones, 1977; Mogford, 1979).Sigel et al. (1983) have compared two groups of preschool-aged children, one with languagedisorders (no hearing trouble) constituting a Communication Handicapped group (CH), the other, without handicap (NCH), matched for sex, age, and parent's educational level. Theyfound that parents of CH children showed less high and medium level demands, used morepointing and more attention-getting devices, were less sensitive to their child's mood or ability


than the parents of NCH children. In a later paper, Sigel and McGillicudi-Delisi (1984) indicatethat parents of 4-year-old children with language production trouble, evidence more low-leveldistancing demands regardless of the task in which parent and child are engaged. However,they do not differ from other parents in the frequency of use of high level demands but,generally, ask more questions. The author's interpretation is that these parents try both touse distancing demands and to encourage their child to verbalize through inquiry techniques.Another study by Wertsch and Sammarco (1988) shows that the mothers of school-aged childrenwith communication disorders undertake more strategical steps in the task of copying a complexarray than do mothers of ordinary children.

Thus, it can be concluded that the fact that a child presents language and communicationdisorders influences the adult's behaviour while interacting with him, and potentially affectsthe child's cognitive development. This conclusionis nevertheless mortgaged: it is hardly possibleto know whether the parents adapt to the communication disorder in itself or to the lowercognitive ability level of the child. In Sigel's study for instance, CH children are superior toNCH children on all of the eight cognitive measures studied. The category of 'language andcommunication disorders' is certainly a too broad one, and implies too complex aetiologicalfactors to allow a clear distinction between cognitive and communicative levels.

Sensory deficiencies offer on that point better opportunities than other developmentaltroubles (Mellier & Deleau 1991) and particularly pre-lingual deafness: in that case, it is possibleto find children who suffer from major (profound deafness) but peripheral troubles. Thus,their most important problem is one of communication, at least when they are young, whiletheir cognitive potential is preserved. They offer a better means to disentangle communicativeand cognitive aspects of development than other communication disorders. In order to studythe effects of the child as a communication partner on the adult's discourse, it would bemore convincing to study the effectsof profound pre-lingual deafness of young children withoutcognitive deficits than any other trouble.

Some empirical work has been published on that point. In infancy, the main difficultiesseem to reside in the capacity of establishing and maintaining contingency between the childand his partner. The greater efficiency of the deaf mothers underlined by several authors(Schlesinger & Meadow, 1972; Gregory & Barlow, 1986) appears to be linked not so muchwith the linguistic system they use, but with their capacity to adapt to the temporal patternof the child's activity and to the specific functional consequence of deafness: using sequentiallythe looking behaviour to control the ongoing action on objects and to communicate, makingmore pauses and longer ones, being less intrusive considering the child's ongoing action...With school-aged children, it has been shown that hearing adults - even professionals often overcontrol the conversation and that there is a negative correlation between controlby the adult and mastery of speech in children (Wood et aI., 1982).

These results confirm firstly that deafness raises specific communication problems in thefield of discourse processes, that cannot be reduced to oral/sign language controversy. Theyconfirm, secondly, that in most cases, the main consequence of deafness is to disorganizethe semiotic means by which are performed the tutoring interactions that contribute to shapethe cognitive: development of the child. This allows to think, considering the importance ofmediation processes in cognitive development, that cognitive troubles that have been describedin deaf children, adolescents or adults by several authors (for instance Oleron, 1972; Furth,1966) might be a consequence of communication disorders as the general Vygotskian perspectivewould predict (cf. Wood, 1986) and not because they lack oral language use per se (Oleron,1972) or they suffer insufficient stimulations owing to their isolation from general social life(Furth, ]976).

Nevertheless the empirical basis they offer is still insufficient and many research is neededto better describe the effects of deafness on adult's scaffolding behaviour, especially duringthe period when language normally develops in the hearing child, that is during the pre-schoolyears. In order to go further in that direction, the second aim of this paper is to study theeffects of profound deafness on adult's discourse in terms of cognitive (here: 'distancing')


characteristics. More precisely, we have investigated the differential effect of the tasks in twocategories of dyads: dyads with hearing infants and dyads with deaf ones, on the 'distancingcharacteristics' of the language adressed to the child by his/her adult partner.

General predictions

We have chosen the end of the second year as age-target in respect of the qualitativechanges in that period where children show an important increase of complex 'semioticbehaviors': especially Language, Symbolic Play and Image or Picture Comprehension.

The two tasks selected are a task of 'Symbolic-Play' and a task of 'Looking at a PictureBook'. They differ in semiotic complexity on the following point: in the Symbolic-Play situation,a large part of the signification is conveyed by non-verbal means (conventional or counterconventional use of figures or objects...) that are mastered earlier than verbal ones on animitative basis; on the contrary, exchanging about a Picture-Book implie the use of more verbalmeans and is mastered later by the child. Thus the comparison between the tasks for onegroup will be done on the basis of the same general cognitive level. The prediction here isthat the communication in the Symbolic-Play task will be easier and that the adult's discoursewill show consequently more medium and high distancing demands than in the Picture-Booktask.

Concerning the Deaf/Hearing comparison, we assume that the general cognitivedevelopment during the first two years is of the same kind for the two categories (at leastfor children with no other than auditory troubles as will be the case here (see infra). In thatrespect, we assume first that the same effects of the tasks will be observed and that, second,considering the communication handicap of deafness, adults discourse will be for each taskless distancing in dyads with deaf children considering their general difficulty to establish andmaintain joint reference.

Method

Tasks

In the Symbolic Play task 14 objects (from 'Play-Mobil' and 'Fischer-Price' collections)are displayed on a small table. They are organized around two themes: the family (figures:male and female adults, child, baby, craddle...) and the farm (figures: horse and cart, cow,small animals: dog, hen...). The adult is just invited to 'play with the child and the small figures'.

In the Picture-book task, the book comprises 9 independent pictures: 3 with photographsof toys; 3 simple drawings (Dick Bruna Albums) of birds, a girl and a flower; 3 more complexdrawings (herb, pine-cone, feather). The adult is invited to 'look at the book with the child'.

Subjects

Dyads with deaf subjects (D-dyads). They are five. These dyads are engaged with othersin a larger longitudinal study on the processes of psychological development in deaf infants.All children are profoundly deaf (hearing loss > 90 dB) and have been diagnosed before theage of 12 months. Their parents have normal hearing. They are all engaged in educationprograms and volunteered to participate'. The children's cognitive development is consideredas normal using Uzgiris and Hunt scale (Lepot-Froment, 1988). The children are between 22and 24 months old.

Dyads with hearing children (Hsdyads), They are 7 and have been examined in day-care


centers. Children are considered as normally developing although no formal evaluation hasbeen done. The adults interacting with the children are not the parents but the adult consideredas the most familiar with each child. We do not consider this point as problematic: the variationsthat might have introduced the difference between parents and a familiar adult in a day carecenter are slight ones in comparison with the contrast between deaf and hearing children ascommunication partners. Children are between 21 and 24 months old.

Procedure

The tasks are proposed twice (once a week during two weeks) to the dyads, in a roomfamiliar to the child in the day-care center or in the special school center. The order ofpresentation is the same for all: first the Symbolic Play and then the Picture-Book. The exchangesare video-recorded. The first 5 minutes of interaction are then transcribed and coded followinga grid adapted from Sigel and presented in Appendix (Sigel et aI., 1987). The intercoderagreement on a sample of 200 utterances has been of .86.

Although, the initial grid has been established to be used with children aged 4-5 andcertainly needs to be adapted to dialogues with younger children, we decided nevertheless touse it here in its original form in order to allow comparisons with other research (for example,Sigel, 1984; Palacios, 1992). We will return to this point in the discussion.

Results

Overall number of utterances

All utterances produced by the adults have been transcribed and analyzed. The generalresults are presented in Table 1.

Table 1Repartition of adult's utterances on the different levels of distanciation for the D-dyads andthe H-dyads

Distanciation level

DO D1 D2 D3 Total

Tasks D H D H D H D H D H

Symbolic Play T 124 298 177 471 57 197 41 106 399 1072M 24.8 42.5 35.4 67.3 11.4 28.1 8.2 15.1 79.8 153.3

SD 11.7 20.7 7.7 17.8 4.3 8.6 4.8 10.4 23.9 37.9

Picture-Book T 177 251 228 563 46 106 43 235 494 1155M 35.5 35.8 45.6 80.4 9.2 15.1 8.6 33.6 98.8 165

SD 14.5 10.9 23.2 10 8.3 8.1 5.1 15.8 25.1 32.6

Note. DO: irrelevant utterances; Dl: low level demands; D2: medium level demands; D3: high level demands. D: dyadswith deaf subjects; H: dyads with hearing children.

There are great differences in the total amount of utterances between the two categoriesbut slight ones between tasks for each category: for D-dyads in Symbolic Play, 399 utterances


vs 494 in Picture book reading; for H-dyads, 1072 in Symbolic-Play vs 1155 in Picture book.A part of utterances was irrelevant to the referents introduced by the tasks, and concernedthe general taking care of the child. They have been categorized as DO and are not integratedin the analysis of distanciation. They nevertheless give an indication on the capacity of thedyad to engage a shared activity on the proposed material: the lower is the number of DOutterances, the greater is the capacity of the dyad to be concentrated on topics relevant tothe proposed tasks.

Analysis of DO utterances

As there are great differences in absolute values, comparisons have been made on a relativebasis: the 010 of DO utterances related to the total number, of which the table 2 gives the values.

Table 2Relative number (%) of adult's DO utterances in the two settings

Dyads

Tasks D

Sirnbolic play M 29.8SO 5.9

Picture-book M 36.6

SD 13

H

27

9.1

21.42.9

Note. D: dyads with deaf subjects; H: dyads with hearing children.

A two factors (2 categories * 2 tasks) ANOVA has been performed that indicates an effectof the category (F(l,20) = 6.7, P < .01), no direct effect of the task. The interaction betweenthe two factors is somewhat beyond the statistical threshold (p < .09). Thus D-dyads are moreoften 'out' of the topics introduced by the tasks, especially in the picture-book one. This isconfirmed by the differences in mean duration of sessions for the different groups (Table 3).

Table 3Mean duration of sessions (in s)

Dyads

Tasks D H

Symbolic Play M 598 600SD 2.7 0

Picture Book M 408 584SD 86 41

No/e. D: dyads with deaf subjects: H: dyads with hearing children.

SEMIOTIC MEDIATION IN GUIDING INTERACTION

Distanciation: Analysis of DI-D3 utterances

481

We have considered first the raw number of utterances. It has been analyzed by a 3 factors(2 categories (D/H) * 2 tasks * 3 levels of distanciation) ANOYA which indicates an effectof categories (F(l,60) = 50.9, p < .0001), distanciation level (F(2,60) = 94.05, p < .0001),interaction between category and D-Ievel (F(2,60) = 5.69, p < .005) and of interaction betweentask and D-Ievel (F(2,60) = 4.58, p < .01). Thus not only deafness lowers the raw numberof utterances, but it provokes a change in the distribution of these utterances between thethree D-Ievels compared to the distribution in H-dyads, this change being also influenced bythe task. This general result has to be confirmed and/or relativized by a more specific analysiscarried on relative data (0/0), and comparing the effects of categories and tasks for each Dlevel utterances.

Table 4Relative number (%) of utterances in Dl to D3 levels for the D-dyads and H-dyads

Levels of distanciation

Dl D2 D3

Task, D H D H D H

Symbolic Play M 65.2 60.9 20.8 25.7 14 13.4SD 11.6 7.9 8.2 6 5.9 7.1

min-max 56-85 53-76 9-29 16-35 4-19 4-21

Picture Book M 71 63.5 14.5 11.8 14.5 24.7SD 18.7 8.8 14.5 5.45 10.2 9

min-max 43-90 51-79 3-39 3-21 5-31 10-37

Note. 01: low level demands; 02: medium level demands; 03: high level demands. 0: dyads with deaf subjects; H: dyadswith hearing chi]dren.

Considering relative data, the first point to be underlined is the great proportion of D1utterances for the two categories. The task appears to be the main factor influencing D1utterances' distribution (F(l,20) = 5.87, p < .05; no effect of category, or interaction betweencategory and task). The task plays also the major role in D2 distribution (F(l,20) = 24.06,p < .0001), whereas the factor category is not far from the signification threshold (F(l,20)= 2.93; p < .10); no interaction between task and category. At last, category exerts an effecton D3 level IF(l,20) = 5.5 p < .02; no statistical effect of task or of interaction).

It is thus confirmed that the task exerts a somewhat complex influence on 'distanciation'characteristics of the utterances adressed to young children depending at least in part on thecategory.

Discussion

The results we have presented are compatible with three of the four predictions we statedformerly: on the one hand that SP task will a) be easier and b) give birth to more 'distancing'

482 M. DElEAU, E. GANDON & V. TABURET

utterances than PB task, on the other hand that the main effects of the tasks as communicationcontexts will be of the same kind between the two categories.

It appears indeed firstly, that Symbolic-Play (SP) is a communication context in whichit is easier to engage the two-year-old child's activity than the Picture-Book (PB) reading:the total duration of session is higher, and the relative number of DO utterances lower thanin PB task. It is also the case that one can find in SP task a relative number of D2 andD3 utterances higher than in PB task. It can thus be stated that SP offers at that age betteropportunities for the childs to encounter higher level distancing demands from his/her parentsthan PB.

A second argument is the following: we found very few interaction effects between taskand categories, what indicates that the processes generated by the tasks and concerning thelevel of distanciation are not qualitatively different between the two categories. Differenceshave to be seen as merely quantitative ones.

The origins of these quantitative differences between the dyads remain nevertheless unclear.The first point is that for both categories and for both tasks, the utterances classified as lowdistanciation level (Dl) represent more than 60-70010 of the total number of utterances. A similarresult has been indicated by Palacios et al. (1992). That raises the question of using aclassification firstly elaborated to be adapted to older children whose cognitive level is higherthan the children we have studied here. Indeed, if one can agree with the idea of levels ofdistanciation, the effectiveness of such or such is always relative to the child's own level, andguiding interactions take that information into account. This general statement can be supportedby some part of our data.

Firstly, if we look in more details into Dl utterances, some interesting differences appearbetween the four categories of utterances: 'describe' is somewhat heterogenous with the threeothers; it 'provides elaborate information about a single instance', what is much more fromthe 'distanciation potential' view that getting attention engaged ('observe'), offer a global label('label') or show how ('demonstrate') using imitative processes. When they 'describe', adultsindicate a specific level of reference (in contrast with 'label' which characterizes a referenceto the whole object). It implies an agreement on the object of attention and, from the pointof view of discourse processes, the minimal capacity of taking into account presuppositions.On that base, it can be considered as more distancing than 'observe', or 'label', or 'demonstrate'although belonging to Dl level following Sigel's criteria. Interestingly, the relative frequencyof 'describing' utterances raises with Symbolic-Play task (from 18 to 38% in D-dyads, andfrom 20 to 43% in H-dyads). This confirms the result of a greater 'distancing potential' ofthis task.

Secondly, it is possible to consider not only the content but also the form of utterances.Palacios et al. (op. cit.) state for instance that frequent and stable low distancing demandsformulated as questions can push young children to solve problems themselves whereas statements- even distancing ones - offer them a ready-made solution. The same idea is expressedby DeLoache and DeMendoza (1987) who state that interrogative modality is typical of verbalinteractions with 'old' babies. A secondary analysis of the repartition of interrogative utteranceshas been made in that perspective and gives two main informations. The first is that it doesnot confirm any preminence of the interrogative mode in the tasks that have been proposed.On the total number of utterances: 14% for PB and 16% for SP for H-dyads: 9,5% for PHand 11,5% for SP considering D-dyads. Nevertheless it indicates as a second information thatthe functions of interrogatives are much more diverse in the Symbolic-Play. Indeed, in PHtask, most of the interrogatives are devoted to bring the child giving labels, definitions orlocalization (what belongs to D3 level): in PH task they represent 89% of all interrogativesin H-dyads, and 66% in D-dyads; whereas in SP task they represent only respectively 51 and59%. In other words, the SP task opens the functions in which interrogatives are used especiallyconsidering utterances belonging to D1 and D2 levels, and offers a more stimulating basisfor the children to actively participate in the course of interaction.

Considering the preceding indications, it appears that the task constitutes a major feature


of the interactional context in which interdiscursive operations develop to the point that itimposes its constraints, even in the cases where severe communication impairments exist betweenchildren and adults.

This leads us to consider the differences that can be specific to D-dyads when comparedto H-dyads. The first and major result is about the joint capacity of child and adult to shareinformation about the referents introduced by the tasks. On that point, D-dyads are inferiorto H-dyads in PB task compared to SP one, either considering the total duration of the sessionor the relative frequency of DO utterances. Thus generally speaking, the communicationimpairment supported by the auditory deficiency lowers the number of distancing demandswhatever the level of distanciation considered, what seems to be partly in agreement with ourfourth prediction of more distanciation in H-dyads. Nevertheless, we had in mind that it couldbe found both in PB and in SP tasks and that it will be efficient also between the threelevels. On that point, our prediction is just partly satisfied. In SP task, no difference hasbeen found on session duration. Considering now the three distanciation levels, results arenot clear cut. No effect of category appears concerning DI utterances distribution. On D2level, there is a tendential effect of category but the task still plays the major role. This 'tendency'might be due to the fact that H-dyads have both a higher proportion than D-dyads of D2utterances in SP, and a lower one in PB, what is in close relation with the greater proportionof D3 utterances in PB task for H-dyads. In that last case, the effect of category is clearas one finds no effect of task and no interaction. But as we have seen formerly, the highestproportion of D3 utterances depends on the high frequency of interrogatives devoted to bringthe child giving labels, definitions or localization. It could be an artifact rooted in the kindof Picture-Book proposed to our dyads.

It is thus difficult to get a clear analysis of the origins of the differential repartition ofutterances on the three levels considered separately. It seems more fruitful to consider the'profiles' of the mean number of utterances of each distanciation level between categories.These 'profiles' are not parallel. For D-dyads, the most important proportion of low-levelutterances (Dl) is to be found in the Picture-Book task. On the contrary, it is in the SymboIicPlay task that the two categories of dyads show the greatest proportion of medium levelutterances. On D3 level, H-dyads have their highest proportion in Picture-book task. To thatwe can add some indication issued from a finer analysis of the different functions withineach level. Concerning level Dl, the difficulties in 'getting the attention of the child' are expressedby a greater proportion in D-dyads of 'observe' utterances (42010 vs 28%) and of 'label' onesin H-dyads in the two tasks (51070 vs 29070). No major difference in D2 level whatever thetask; more 'displaced references' for H-dyads (29% vs 11010) in PB task for D3 level.

Although it doesn't solve the problem of a possible artifact, it gives, together with datarelative to session duration and to relative frequency of DO utterances, a better plausibilityto our prediction of a 'lower distanciation effect' of communication impairment in D-dyads.It must be underlined though, that the main effect of deafness results in the important reductionof the number of utterances on a background of qualitative similaritybetween the two categoriesof subjects.

Such a result comfirms some of the studies we have formerly referred to, which indicatethat one of the main problem of adults interacting with very young deaf children is to establishspecific skills of divided attention between objects and people (Wood et aI., 1986) in theestablishment of joint reference. It adds at least one more indication. One of the means tohelp constructing such skills is to offer to D-dyads tasks that make it easier both to 'attendtogether' to the same object and to share conventional meaning about it. No doubt that forthe level of development we have studied in this paper, a Symbolic-Play task offers betteropportunities than a Picture-book reading one. Not only it makes the child engage longerand more actively in the joint activity but it allows more 'distancing' attitudes from his/heradult partner.

Thus 'distancing' is not independent of the task, that is of the interactional context inwhich discours is rooted. It can thus hardly be operationalized only by the semantic features


of the utterances but has to integrate the pragmatic characteristics of the 'distanciative discourse'as have noted Palacios et al. (1992) about the possible role of questions as distancing deviceswith very young children. This leads to a second, more general point on which Sigel's analysiscan be completed. The 'distancing potential' of an utterance does not reside only in theproposition, nor in the adult's intention or referential perspective in itself, but also in thechild's own level confronted with the constraints of the task. Thus it is not so much the taskper se that exerts pragmatic constraints than the distance between the actual capacities ofthe child, the intention of his/her partner and the characteristics of the task. Performing amore precise analysis of the pragmatic aspects of discourse productions adressed to the childby the adults seems necessary to assess better and explore more deeply the distanciationhypothesis.

Note

We are indebted to the parents and children who participated in the research and to the staffs of the following earlyeducation programs who have contributed to the general designing of the research and include the varied protocolsin their every-day professional life: Centre Comprendre et Parler et Institut Royal des Sourds et Aveugles (Bruxelles,Belgique); Centre La Persagotiere et Centre Paul Cezanne, (Nantes et Fougeres, France). We would like to thank alsothe staff of the Day-care Centers 'Tannou' and 'H. Wallon' (Rennes, France), for the facilities to work with the hearingchildren.

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Appendix

Distancing demands (from Sigel et al; 1987)

D1: Low level demands

Observe - To attend using any sense. Getting attention engaged.Label - To name an object, an action, a place. Does not involve inference or

elaboration.Demonstrate - Show primarily through action and gestures, the 'how' process.

Describe - Provide elaborate information about a single instance.

D2: Medium level demands

Sequence - Order events or articulate the steps of a task in a temporal succession.Compare - Describe, define or list the properties of two separate instances.Combine - Classify and/or organize components into a unified whole.* Correct - Reformulates giving the proper expression.

486 M. DEl.EAU, E. GANDON & V. TABURET

* Define - Defining 'by use' or a functional characteristic.* Prompt to - make-believe with objects or label objects high level demands.

Generalize - To apply or transfert knowledge from one setting to another.Plan - Formulate conditions to carry out a set of actions in an orderly way.

* Displaced references - Refer to an object, a person or an event not present in time or space.* Open questions - Supposed to induce general statements (ex: on what will be done)

Remarks

Several of the functions described by Sigel, especially in the high level category have had noinstance in our data (what is not surprising considering the young age of children): they are notlisted in the preceding table. On the other hand, we have found some utterances that did not fitany of Sigel's category, they have been classified in medium and high level according to Sigel'sgeneral criteria and are indicated by a *.

Key words: Communication handicap, Distanciation, Guidance interaction.

Received: May 1993

Michel Deleau. laboratoire de Psychologie du Developpernent et de I'Education, Centre de Recherches en Psychologie,Cognition et Communication, Universite de Rennes 2, 6 Avenue Gaston Berger, F-35043 Rennes Cedex, France.

Current theme of research:

Socio cognitive development, Pre-verbal communication and language development, Effects of handicaps on psychologicaldevelopment.

Most relevant publications in the field of Educational Psychology:

Deleau, M. (1990). Les origines sociales du developpement mental. Communication et symboles dans la premiere enfance.Paris: A. Colin.

Deleau, M. (1993). Communication and the development of symbolic-play. In J. Napel, & L. Camaioni (Eds.), NewPerspectives in early Communication Development, (pp. 97-115). London: Routledge.

Deleau, M., & Weil-Barais, A. (in press). Le Developpement de l'enfant: approches comparatives. Paris: Presses Universitairesde France.

Mellier, D., & Deleau, M. (1991). Pour une approche developpementale de la communication en cas de handicap; problemeset perspectives de recherche. Revue Internationate de Psychologie sociale, 4, 99-122.

Eva Gandon. laboratoire de Psychologic du Developpernent et de l'Education, Centre de Recherches en PsychoJogie,Cognition et Communication, Universite de Rennes 2, 6 Avenue Gaston Berger, F-35043 Rennes Cedex, France.


Theory of mind, language development, Assertive modalities development.

Veronique Taburet. laboratoire de Psychologie du Developpernent et de I'Education, Centre de Recherches en Psychologic,Cognition et Communication, Universite de Rennes 2, 6 Avenue Gaston Berger, F-35043 Rennes Cedex, France.


Language adressed to the child.

Documents

Semiotics of interacting with young children