Interaccion adulto - Niño en la escuela infantil

The paper reports on a study made on 30 children, 15 two-year-olds and 15 four-year-olds, boys and girls, who spoke catalan and castillian, who attended four schools. The children were observed and the findings recorded on video-tape, in both work and play situations. The object of the study was to examine the verbal and non-verbal communication, between teacher and children in four situations: interaction A- between teacher and single children in a dyad situation, B - when the child was alone or in a group, C- with the group if the child was the observer, D - when the child was not with a group. The categories were codified as follows: Non-verbal interaction, smiles, gesture and physical contact; verbal interaction, language spoken by the children, questions responses, explanations and suggestions; who was being spoken to - adult, boy, girl or group: social participation; solitary activity, parallel activity associative activity (imitation, giving, taking, sharing etc). © 1993 Springer.