3.3.2. Interrelationship Analysis of Moves, Communicative Functions, and Modes of Communication

As shown in Figure 3a, in the EGAT condition, most children tended to provide provision of information in their initiations (mean rate per minute = 0.98), whereas in NEGAT condition, fewer initiations and individual variations without explicit patterns were found. In the children's responses, provision of information was the highest communicative function in the EGAT condition (mean rate per minute = 1.24), while confirmation/denial represented the highest communicative function in the NEGAT condition (mean rate per minute = 1.44). The communication partners made almost twice the amount of requests in their initiations with higher rates in NEGAT compared to the EGAT condition (mean rate per minute = 2.84 vs.1.50).

In relation to modes, as shown in Figure 3b, the children provided information by means of EGAT primarily in their communicative turns (mean proportion = 0.94) and conveyed confirmation/denial or self-shared expression mostly by gesture (mean proportion = 0.70, 0.91). In the NEGAT condition Figure 3c, they predominantly used gestures for varied communicative functions (mean proportion = 0.57–1) except for the provision of information that they equally used gestures and a combination of low-tech devices and natural modes (mean proportion = 0.40, 0.41). The partners engaged in communicative functions predominantly by means of speech in both conditions (mean proportion = 0.56, 0.57).
