Owens, Sarah J.Graham, Susan2020-05-192020-05-192016-01Owens, S. J., & Graham, S. A. (2016). Thee, uhh disfluency effect in preschoolers: A cue to discourse status. "British Journal of Developmental Psychology". 2016: 34. pp. 388-401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12137http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112074https://doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/43724Speech disfluencies, such as filled pauses (ummm, uhhh), are increasingly recognized as an informative element of the speech stream. Here, we examined whether 2- and 3-year-olds expected that the presence of filled pause would signal reference to objects that are new to a discourse. Children viewed pairs of familiar objects on a screen and heard a speaker refer to one of the objects twice in succession. Next, children heard a critical utterance and were asked to look and point at either the discourse-given (i.e., previously mentioned) or discourse-new (i.e., previously unmentioned) object using a fluent ('Look at the ball!') or disfluent ('Look at thee uh ball!') expression. The results indicated that 3-year-old children, but not 2-year-old children, initially expected the speaker to continue to refer to given information in the critical utterance. Upon hearing a filled pause, however, both 2- and 3-year-old children's looking patterns reflected increased looks to discourse-new objects, although the timing of the effect differed between the age groups. Together, these findings demonstrate that young children have an emerging understanding of the role of filled pauses in speech.engUnless otherwise indicated, this material is protected by copyright and has been made available with authorization from the copyright owner. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.journal articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12137