Development of Communicative Competence in Inuit Children: Implications for Speech-Language Pathology

This article describes ethnographic research whose purpose was to document the development of communicative competence in four young Inuit children by studying the role of cultural context in the cammunicative interaction of these children and their caregivers. In doing so, the study looked at Inuit...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Childhool Communication Disorders
Main Author: Crago, Martha B.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publications 1990
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/152574019001300108
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/152574019001300108
Description
Summary:This article describes ethnographic research whose purpose was to document the development of communicative competence in four young Inuit children by studying the role of cultural context in the cammunicative interaction of these children and their caregivers. In doing so, the study looked at Inuit children's communicative interactions in the situational context of their everyday lives. Results show that caregiuer accommodations to Inuit children differ in many ways from what has been reported for white middle-class North Americans. This variation in caregiver-child verbal and non-verbal interaction suggest that assessment and intervention approaches used with and developed to suit North American mainstream children are not appropriate for language-impaired Inuit children and their families. Possibilities for culturally-appropriate changes to these approaches are discussed.