Profils dialogiques de dyades mère – enfant avec et sans troubles du langage

Dialogical behaviours of 43 mother-child dyads (18 with specific language impairment (SLI) children aged from 5 to 7 and 25 with normally developing (ND) children aged from 4 to 7) were studied in a guessing game situation. Mother's and children participation to dialogue was assessed according to some key interactional features (semiotic modalities of their interactional turns, illocutionary types of their verbal moves). On the other hand, our study is focused on the ability of the children to answer in a relevant way and to fit their interlocutors needs in the frame of the guessing activity. Unexpectedly, our data show, for semiotic modalities of interactional turns, illocutionary types and relevance of answers, similar interactional profiles for the SLI children and their mothers and for ND children and their mothers. Nevertheless, non verbal behaviours in SLI dyads have different roles with respect to verbal behaviours. Children verbal reactions to their mothers' answers show some sensibility to the characteristics of the activity even though SLI children have more difficulties to change and adapt their strategies if their mothers provide erroneous answers to their guessing cues. The discussion deals with the complexity and flexibility of their dialogical profiles.