‘Where does Granny live?’ The role of test questions in conversational remembering between mothers and their children with developmental language disorder

Abstract

Background: Parent–child conversations form the primary context for language acquisition. This article investigates the role of test questions (TQs) in shaping turn construction opportunities for children with language disorder during conversational remembering with their mothers. Method: Video-recorded data from two mother–child dyads were evaluated using conversation analysis (CA). A recently proposed framework was used to examine TQ sequences initiated and developed from both a knowing and unknowing epistemic stance. Results: Our findings suggest that turn-taking and turn construction opportunities for the child are shaped by: congruity of mother’s epistemic stance within and across turns; positioning of mother’s remembering as shared, joint, or collaborative; availability of language elements in mother’s turn for the child’s next turn construction; and mother’s expectation of competence display by the child in their following turn. Discussion and conclusion: Our data reveal the potential of CA to inform understanding of TQ patterns and interventions which support parents in the refinement of conversation skills to help children with language disorder.