Some Contrasts Between Mothers and Preschool Teachers in Interaction with 4-year-old Children

Abstract

Sixty-six mothers were compared with 34 preschool teachers on two types of adult-child interaction (a communication task and block sort task). Both groups were similar in the interaction tasks on number of message units, ratio of adult to child message units, and success in communicating and teaching block sorting principles. Mothers differed from teachers in several ways. They asked for more responses to be generated by the child, made more direct requests and commands, and gave more explicit and corrective feedback to children following children’s errors. These differences are discussed from both psychological and sociological perspectives.