Children With Normal Language Skills in Preschool Classrooms for Children With Language Impairments

Differences in Modeling Styles

Three children with normally-developing language who served as peer models in a preschool classroom for language-impaired children were observed to evaluate their performance as language models. Data analyses focused on how much time each child spent alone, in activities with language-impaired classmates, with other models and/or adults, as well as how language was used by the models during conversations. Conversation samples were coded for assertiveness and responsiveness as per a taxonomy developed by Fey (1986). Results indicated that although each of the model children had the prerequisite language competencies for modeling age-appropriate language behaviors, the amount of time each spent engaging language-impaired classmates in activities and conversation varied.

KEY WORDS: reverse mainstreaming, modeling, language impairment, preschoolers

Submitted on February 1, 1990
Accepted on October 18, 1990

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?