No abstract

No abstract

In the last decade, research has established the competence and sensitivity of fathers with their young children. In the field of child language, the significance of father's input has also been recognised. In fact, some researchers suggest that parents in the Western world play complementary rather than redundant roles. The present investigation which is longitudinal in design compares a father and mother in conversation with their language‐impaired child; it documents the differences and similarities across the parents. Interestingly, on the part of the language‐impaired child, most of the differences were influenced by differences in parental strategy. The implications of these findings which highlight the interactive nature of parent‐child conversation are discussed.