The purpose of this research was to analyze how parent-child interactions differ in discourse structure, communicative function and linguistic behaviors between children who are at high-risk for developing a behavioral disorder such as ADHD, and those who are at high-risk for developing a behavioral disorder with a co-occurring language impairment. Participants consisted of 20 children ages three to five years old and their parents. A five-minute parent-child interaction was video recorded and analyzed using an adapted version of the “Coding parent/child interaction as a clinical outcome: a research note” designed by Law, Barnett, and Kot (1999).
Results revealed slight differences in each communication parameter amongst the two groups, however, statistical results of parametric and non-parametric tests determined that there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups, with the exception of increased verbal initiations (p=.040) in children with no language impairment when compared to those with a language impairment as was expected.