Verbal correspondence can be defined as the relationship between verbal and non verbal individual's behaviors. This study had as objective to describe correspondence behaviors of mothers and sons in a natural situation in a medical context. Seven mother-child pairs (children with ages between five and eight years-old) and one physician participated in the research. With each pair, there were three moments: 1) an interview with the mother and child separately before the medical examination, 2) filming of the examination and 3) interview after the examination with mother and son, separately. The results demonstrated that, from the categorized behaviors, most children showed total verbal correspondence say-do-say (33,33%). However, the mothers had most of their behaviors categorized as non-correspondence (36,84%). This research suggests that variables such as age, social- economical level, educational level and context may have some influence in the emergency of natural verbal correspondence.
Correspondence between saying and doing; medical examination; pairs mother-child
