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

Abstract

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.