Conversations between deaf peers during play: Implications for the development of social understanding Jessica Beer & David B. Pisoni DeVault Otologic Research Lab, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis IN Turn Child Conversational turnTurn type Mental state 1A I got a puppy. This puppy is fast. Ruff, ruff. I’ll shoot guys [puts puppy onto table where peer is playing] Initiation— 2B I want you to shoot these. Shoot these. [sets up horses] ConnectedDesire 3A [shoots at horses, makes shooting noises] Connected nonverbal — 4B You can’t shoot us [referring to the knights] Connected— 5A Why? Connected— 6B Because we are the castle mans [the knights] Connected— 7A My puppy is fast Failed— Introduction Social understanding in normal-hearing children* A social constructivist position suggests that children’s developing understanding of mind occurs gradually within social interactions. Through communicative interactions children coordinate with others the activities in which they are embedded and in which they are an active participant. Through triadic interactions (self, others, object) children build knowledge about their own and others’ intentions, beliefs, and desires. From this perspective, everyday conversations play a critical role in the development of social understanding. (Carpendale & Lewis, 2004) Social understanding in deaf children of hearing parents The conversational environments of DoH children are significantly impacted by decreased auditory access to sound and delayed development of a shared language. From birth, DoH children experience restricted opportunities to overhear and participate in everyday communicative exchanges. Differences in social and communicative experiences will lead to in differences in a child’s construction of social understanding. In fact, DoH children with hearing aids and cochlear implants are delayed in social understanding some 3 to 5 years compared to normal-hearing peers. (Peterson, 2004) *often referred to as Theory of Mind (ToM) To compare socio-cognitive aspects of play conversations of deaf peers who use spoken language to age-matched, normal-hearing peers. Overall AimSocio-cognitive measures 1.Number of conversational turns Conversational turn - The utterance of one child bounded by the utterance of the other child. Including nonverbal responses and elicitations. 2.Quality of conversational turn: “Tuning in” Connected – One child’s turn is semantically related to the other child’s previous turn Failed –Child’s turn is substantially unrelated to the other child’s previous turn Initiation – Child initiates a new topic that is both unrelated to the other child’s previous turn and successful in eliciting a semantically related response from the other child Unclear - Majority of child's utterance is unintelligible or inaudible 3.Number of references to mental states Cognitive states – know, think, pretend, bet, remember Desire states – want, feel like, wish Emotion states – scare, sorry, favorite, bad, good Research Question 2 Are there differences in the connectedness of the conversations? Research Question 3 Are there differences in the context of mental state references? Deaf and normal-hearing peers referenced mental states most often within the context of connected exchanges. During unstructured play, deaf peers who use spoken language do engage in conversation; however, their social communicative uses of language are different from normal-hearing children. These differences may contribute to differences in the development of social understanding. Oral deaf children may have difficulty engaging in verbalized connected exchanges compared to normal-hearing peers  Impacting their ability to maintain connected conversation over a series of exchanges  Inhibiting more complex collaboration and coordination of perspective and intention upon which sophisticated social understanding develops Oral deaf children do not refer to mental states as often as normal-hearing children; however when they do, it is primarily within connected turns.  Difficulty using and sharing mental state knowledge for negotiating meaning  The use of mental state references within connected turns is related to better performance on tasks of social understanding Although a cochlear implant and auditory oral education may provide rapid gains in speech perception and spoken language skills, the social communicative behavior of deaf children is an area that requires targeted habilitation and further developmental research. The conventional methodology for measuring speech and language outcome in deaf children with cochlear implants ignores the development of pragmatic and social communicative skills. This results in a distorted picture of how well children use the auditory input they receive from an implant in everyday contexts. Conclusions Acknowledgement and Support We would like to thank the families and children who took their time to participate in this research. We would also like to thank the educators at St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf and St. Richard’s for inviting us into their schools and providing valuable insight into the everyday lives of deaf and hearing children and families. This research was supported by NIH/NIDCD Training Grant T32DC00012 to Indiana University Participants Deaf peers (4 dyads) Auditory oral education Mean age 5.6 years (3.2 years hearing exp) 7 CI users & 1 hearing aid user with moderate- profound loss Age matched Normal-hearing peers (4 dyads) Mean age 5.3 years Private preschool/kindergarten Procedures All children were paired with a familiar peer from school Video and audio recordings of peer dyads were collected as children engaged in undirected play for 15 minutes. Gender appropriate toys that encourage pretend play were provided. All verbal and nonverbal elicitations and responses were transcribed References: de Rosnay, M., & Hughes, C. (2006). Conversation and theory of mind: Do children talk their way to socio-cognitive understanding? British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 24(1), Ensor, R., & Hughes, C. (2008). Content or connectedness? Mother–child talk and early social understanding. Child Development, 79(1), Moeller, M. P., & Schick, B. (2006). Relations between maternal input and theory of mind understanding in deaf children. Child Development, 77(3), Peterson, C. (2004). Theory-of-mind development in oral deaf children with cochlear implants or conventional hearing aids. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(6), Shatz, M., & Gelman, R. (1973). The development of communication skills: Modifications in the speech of young children as a function of the listener. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 38, Slomkowski, C., & Dunn, J. (1996). Young children's understanding of other people's beliefs and feelings and their connected communication with friends. Developmental Psychology, 32(3), Contact Information Jessica Beer Sample Transcript Research Question 1 Are there differences in the frequency of turns and mental state references? Deaf peers referenced mental states in a fewer percentage of their turns than normal-hearing peers. During 15 minutes of free play, deaf peers engaged in fewer conversational exchanges than normal-hearing peers. Deaf peers engaged in more nonverbal connected turns than normal-hearing age matched peers. Deaf peers connected verbally in less than half of their exchanges. Deaf peers engaged in fewer connected turns and more failed turns than normal-hearing age matched peers.