Three‐term Contingency Patterns in Mother‐child Verbal Interactions During First‐language Acquisition

Abstract

Selections from a large longitudinal data set of verbal interactions between a mother and her child are presented. Two sets of three-term contingency sequences that seemed to reflect maternal rewards and corrections were noted. Both the antecedents as well as the immediate consequences of maternal interventions are presented to explore training and learning processes. The observed frequencies of three-step sequences are compared to those expected based upon Markov-chain logic to substantiate the patterning of the interactions. Behavioral conceptualizations of the learning process are supported by these analyses, although their sufficiency is questioned. It is suggested that maternal rewards and corrections should be integrated with perceptual, cognitive, and social learning conceptualizations in a skill-learning approach to explain the complexity of language transmission and acquisition processes.

Three Myths from the Language Acquisition Literature

“…The study's data consisted of transcriptions of their verbal interactions with their mothers and, at times, their fathers and others. Using the original transcripts, Moerk (1990) conducted an exhaustive reanalysis of the verbal interactions of 1 of the 3 children (Eve) and her mother (at times, others joined the conversation). As a result, Moerk found considerable evidence of direct reinforcement provided by the mother.…”

“…The first type of reinforcement (agreement) Moerk (1990) operationally defined as Eve's mother saying '' 'yes,' 'yeah,' 'right,' or an equivalent response'' (p. 298) after an utterance by Eve. According to Moerk, ''many linguistic skills are first modeled by the mother; they are more or less directly imitated by the child and rewarded by a maternal 'yes' or a closely equivalent reinforcing response'' (p. 298).…”

“…For example, Sundberg et al (1996) have offered evidence to suggest that automatic reinforcement advances speech acquisition in children. Further, based on a reanalysis of some of Brown's original transcripts, Moerk's (1990) found that two types of maternal responses (agreement and expansions) functioned as reinforcement during language acquisition.…”

“…The 1990s produced more studies (e.g., Bohannon, MacWhinney, & Snow, 1990;Saxton, 1992Saxton, , 1993Smith et al, 1996) that demonstrated the existence of negative evidence, as well as studies (e.g., Farrar, 1990Farrar, , 1992Moerk, 1990) that showed its effectiveness. With respect to the former, Moerk (2000) noted that ''probably close to one hundred such studies exist supporting the existence of corrections'' (p. 117).…”

“…In the years following Brown and Hanlon's study, accumulating evidence indicates that not only does negative evidence exist (e.g., Bohannon et al, 1990), but that it is effective in weakening inappropriate vocalizations (e.g., Ahearn et al, 2007) and ungrammaticality (e.g., Goldstein, 1984). Indeed, Moerk's (1990) reanalysis of Brown's original data offers evidence that parents provide negative evidence that functions (a) to punish those elements of a child's preceding utterance that were ungrammatical and also (b) to prompt the child to emit a corrected form of that utterance.…”