Communication Competence

Communication Competence 1

Abstract

Communication competence is something that affects people everyday. It is very broad and is, in fact, too broad to discuss every aspect. Therefore, this work will be focused specifically on communication competence in family communication and how parents affect the child during the developmental stages.

Communication competence can be linked to Mead's symbolic interactionism theory. Throughout our paper, the concepts of symbolic interactionism are applied to communication competence. The goal of this paper is to better understand the importance of effective communication during the developmental stages of children, and further show the vitality of symbolic interactionism to development.

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In this research, three main topics are discussed. First, the research focuses on the phenomenon of communication competence and a clear definition will be given so that the reader gains a mutual understanding of the term communication competence. The topic will be narrowed down to its importance in family communication and the research will focus on the importance of parents communicating affectively to their children. Secondly, Mead's theory of symbolic interactionism will be discussed. Each concept of this theory will be explained and the paper will then exhibit the relation between communication competence and symbolic interactionism. The last section of the paper will discuss what was found through research, and hopefully help the reader understand the importance of communication competence. After discussing communication competence, symbolic interactionism, and explaining the link between the two, a hypothesis will be given.

How does communication competence correlate with the leadership role of the adult? We discovered two different perspectives of the concept. "Communication competence for the cognitive perspective is the ability of the individual

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to demonstrate knowledge of the appropriate behavior in a given situation. Communication competence from the behavioral perspective is the ability of the individual to perform the appropriate communicative behavior in a given situation" {Flauto, 1999, 0.90). In a home, a parent must not only demonstrate that they have knowledge of appropriate communication behavior to their child, but they also must portray this behavior by their actions. According to the study, in order to be an effective leader, you must be a competent communicator.

Leadership is a main aspect of communication competence. Parents direct operations, activities, and performances of families in many cases. A study researched the role of parent-child conversation and its role in shaping a child's cognitive development (Laible, 2004). Therefore when a child converses with an adult, the internal thought originates from the social interaction. This is due to a mutual understanding and meaning given to the conversation by the caregiver and the child. The child, in turn, internalizes their conversations, and further guides his social skills (Laible, 2004). "When parents verbally guide a child in creating descriptions of social, emotional, and moral experiences, caregivers are

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likely teaching children about socio-emotional concepts, including the causes and consequences of emotions, what type of behaviors are socially acceptable, and how they evaluate moral and emotional experiences" (Laible, 2004, p.979).

The style the parent uses to communicate with the child has an effect on their recollection of past experiences (Laible, 2004). Some parents are very elaborate and provide rich descriptions of past experiences. This type of parent also asks open ended questions about a child's memories (Laible, 2004). On the other hand, some parents provide little support and detail of past experience. "Researchers on autobiographical memory have found empirical support for the idea that elaborative parents have children who have more comprehensive and detailed memory of their past experiences than children of repetitive parents" (Laible, 2004, p.980).

Interpersonal relationships are influenced by communication competence. The interpersonal relationships a child forms are determined by the child learning to develop relationships by the competence demonstrated by the

caregiver.