Hypotheses in adult-child interactions stimulate children's reasoning and verbalizations

Adult-child interactions can support children's development and are established as predictors of program quality in early childhood settings. However, the linguistic components that constitute positive interactions have not yet been studied in detail. This study investigates the effects of hypotheses proposed by adults on children's responses in a dyadic picture-book viewing situation. In 2 experiments, adults’ use of hypotheses (e.g., “Maybe...