Children Increase Their Sensitivity to a Speaker's Nonlinguistic Cues Following a Communicative Breakdown

• Autores: W. Quin Yow, Ellen M. Markman
• Localización: Child development, ISSN 0009-3920, Vol. 87, Nº. 2, 2016, págs. 385-394
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Bilingual children regularly face communicative challenges when speakers switch languages. To cope with such challenges, children may attempt to discern a speaker's communicative intent, thereby heightening their sensitivity to nonverbal communicative cues. Two studies examined whether such communication breakdowns increase sensitivity to nonverbal cues. English-speaking monolingual (n = 64) and bilingual (n = 54) 3- to 4-year-olds heard instructions in either English only or English mixed with a foreign language. Later, children played a hiding game that relied on nonverbal cues. Hearing a foreign language switch improved both monolingual and bilingual children's use of these cues. Moreover, bilinguals with more prior code-switching exposure outperformed those with less prior code-switching exposure. Children's short-term strategies to repair communication breakdowns may evolve into a more generalizable set of skills.