The Effectiveness of Interrogatives for Promoting Verbal Elaboration Productivity in Young Children

A Cross-Cultural Study of Verbal Elaboration Productivity and Memory in Young Children

“…The results from the present study with Hebrew-speaking Israeli children are comparable with the results obtained by Turnure et al (1976) with English-speaking American children. The ranking of the labeling, sentence-generation, sentence-repetition, response-to-what, and response-to-why conditions according to the number correct in recall was identical in the two studies, with the questioning conditions inducing definitely superior recall.…”

“…The present study was, in part, an attempt at systematic replication of the earlier findings of Turnure, Buium, and Thurlow (1976) in which young normal and mentally retarded American children were induced through use of a question-This research was supported by funds from the Office of International Programs Developmental Funds Grant, University of Minnesota, and by a grant to the University of Minnesota Research, Development, and Demonstration Center in Education of Handicapped Children (OEG-09-332189-4533-032) from the Bureau of Education of the Handicapped, U.S. Office of Education. The present study was, in part, an attempt at systematic replication of the earlier findings of Turnure, Buium, and Thurlow (1976) in which young normal and mentally retarded American children were induced through use of a question-This research was supported by funds from the Office of International Programs Developmental Funds Grant, University of Minnesota, and by a grant to the University of Minnesota Research, Development, and Demonstration Center in Education of Handicapped Children (OEG-09-332189-4533-032) from the Bureau of Education of the Handicapped, U.S. Office of Education.…”

“…In the Turnure et al (1976) study, the frequency of nonresponses was found to differ across conditions, which was interpreted as indicating comparable responsivity by subjects in each condition. In the present study, however, the nonresponses tended to be minimal in conditions resulting in high correct recall (response to what, response to why) and maximal in conditions resulting in low correct recall (labeling, sentence generation, listening, interrogative reversal [see table 1]) and, in the comparable latter conditions, appeared substantially higher than obtained from American subjects.…”

“…In the present study, however, the nonresponses tended to be minimal in conditions resulting in high correct recall (response to what, response to why) and maximal in conditions resulting in low correct recall (labeling, sentence generation, listening, interrogative reversal [see table 1]) and, in the comparable latter conditions, appeared substantially higher than obtained from American subjects. Theoretically, high correct re-Buium and Turnure 299 call conditions reflect a kind of semantic processing that is not entailed in low correct recall conditions (Buium 1976;Turnure et al, 1976;Buium, Note 2). When not given the benefit of semantic processing, American children appear more inclined to guess, as is reflected in the higher proportion of nonsemantic errors they produced, while Israeli children apparently choose not to respond when the correct response is not available to them, possibly reflecting the kind of substantive imprint emphasized by Meacham (1975).…”

“…Furthermore, Buium (1976) noted some possible cultural differences in the usage of interrogatives: Israeli mothers used a higher frequency of what and why questions and lower frequency use of yes-no questions than did mothers in the United States. Based on a level-of-processing hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart 1972) which formally predicts that any material subject to deep processing at the level of comprehension will be necessarily learned and retained, it was expected that subjects in the present study would replicate the pattern of findings obtained by Turnure et al (1976) despite radical differences in the grammatical form of the language and further differences in the nature of the cultural background of the children. Based on a level-of-processing hypothesis (Craik & Lockhart 1972) which formally predicts that any material subject to deep processing at the level of comprehension will be necessarily learned and retained, it was expected that subjects in the present study would replicate the pattern of findings obtained by Turnure et al (1976) despite radical differences in the grammatical form of the language and further differences in the nature of the cultural background of the children.…”