Unestablished referent in children's conversations: an assessment procedure

Abstract

In the conversations of children with pragmatic difficulties, breakdown frequently occurs in the establishment of referent and in the associated area of cohesion, both of which involve organizational skills. This paper introduces a procedure for the assessment of unestablished referent in conversation, within the framework of pragmatic functioning provided by Prutting's Pragmatic Protocol. An illustration is given of the use of the procedure to trace how specific instances of failure to establish referent arise. Therapy is planned on this basis, with the close involvement of the child's conversational partners.