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Fig. . Distribution of children's private speech across the two types of children's activity (goal-directed, non goal-directed), by age group.  

Fig. . Distribution of children's private speech across the two types of children's activity (goal-directed, non goal-directed), by age group.  

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This study set out to explore the contexts in which preschool children use private speech, or self-talk, in the naturalistic setting of the preschool classroom, and age-related changes in the contexts in which preschoolers talk to themselves. A total of 2752 naturalistic observations of fourteen three-year-old and fourteen four-year-old children we...

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... After peaking around 2-3 years (Nelson, 1989), utterance frequency decreases between 4-5 years of age and becomes more abbreviated, harder to discern, and predicated on context (Berk, 1992). As private speech becomes more differentiated from social speech, it is gradually internalized and integrated with covert activity (Winsler et al., 2000). This decline in overt private speech during a period of continued language learning does not necessarily mean that children decrease practicing their emerging language skills. ...
... This decline in overt private speech during a period of continued language learning does not necessarily mean that children decrease practicing their emerging language skills. Rather, children may internalize practice as they acquire richer representation skills, such as internalization, which reduces the need for thoughts and ideas to be vocalized aloud (Vygotsky, 1962;Winsler, 2009;Winsler et al., 2000). 3 The presumed function of private speech changes as children develop. ...
... Indeed, the proportion of linguistic practice is more frequent in private speech than in social speech (Kuczaj, 1983). As private speech becomes less overt in older children, its function transforms from a tool for language play and practice to a metacognitive tool serving self-regulation and emotion-regulation purposes (Day & Smith, 2013;Nelson, 1989;Winsler et al., 2000). For example, as private speech becomes more task-relevant between 4-5 years (Winsler et al., 2003), older children often use motivational, self-affirming speech when engaging in difficult tasks (Atencio, 2004). ...
Article
Humans and other vocal-learning species engage in solo vocalizations. Such vocalizations in the human literature are referred to as private speech and have been hypothesized to play a role in vocal repertoire development both in humans and nonhumans, alike. The current study used corpus linguistics techniques to quantitatively and qualitatively compare the private speech of a two-year-old child and an enculturated, home-reared African Grey parrot to identify similarities and differences in the composition and function of their private speech. Both speakers exhibited previously documented human private speech functions, including sound- and word-play and repetitive practice of new words. The composition of the utterances, however, was different between the two speakers. The child’s private speech contained a larger vocabulary, more frequent use of function words (i.e., prepositions, articles, pronouns, conjunctions) to string together ideas, and the use of multiple verb tenses. The cross-species finding that a home-reared parrot’s private speech is similar in function—including evidence of play and possible intrinsically-motivated practice—to that of a language-learning child offers unique insights into the evolution of human language.
... However, given that traditional play is being replaced by digital play on digital devices, a growing area of research has focused on how digital playground impacts young children's emotional and cognitive growth as well as their ability to self-regulate and learn (e.g., Ewin et al., 2021;Wallenius et al., 2009). On the other hand, following Vygotskian theoretical viewpoints (1934/1987), the speech an individual speaks to oneself during a cognitively challenging task or play, known as self-directed speech or private speech, eventually internalizes and develops into what is known as inner speech or verbal thinking during the preschool years and beyond (Winsler & Naglieri, 2003;Winsler et al., , 2000aWinsler et al., , 2000b. The cognitive function of language in the form of private speech promotes the development of higher mental processes, and it is, therefore, seen to be crucial in fostering the development of children's self-regulation (Alarcón-Rubio et al., 2014;Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005;Winsler et al., , 2000aWinsler et al., , 2000b. ...
... On the other hand, following Vygotskian theoretical viewpoints (1934/1987), the speech an individual speaks to oneself during a cognitively challenging task or play, known as self-directed speech or private speech, eventually internalizes and develops into what is known as inner speech or verbal thinking during the preschool years and beyond (Winsler & Naglieri, 2003;Winsler et al., , 2000aWinsler et al., , 2000b. The cognitive function of language in the form of private speech promotes the development of higher mental processes, and it is, therefore, seen to be crucial in fostering the development of children's self-regulation (Alarcón-Rubio et al., 2014;Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005;Winsler et al., , 2000aWinsler et al., , 2000b. In addition, emerging evidence, based on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of mind, suggests that peers make significant contributions to one another's language development (e.g., Justice et al., 2011;Lantolf, 2000;Schechter & Bye, 2007;Swain et al., 2002;Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2014). ...
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Researchers, parents, and policymakers from previous generations have recently expressed concern about the inevitable exposure of youngsters to digital media and its potentially detrimental effects on their development. Private speech is the overt audible self-talk people produce when engaged with challenging problem-solving tasks and is believed to aid in second language acquisition as reported (Vygotsky in Thought and language, MIT Press, 1962); (Winsler in Private Speech, Executive Functioning, and the Development of Verbal Self-Regulation, 2009). This qualitative case study explored private speech production in three young adolescents (two 11-year-olds and one 10-year-old) while completing an English as a foreign language task (Bingo! game) individually and collaboratively in physical and digital modes. Patterns of participants’ private speech markers emerged from a thematic analysis of the transcribed oral interactions during eight sessions. The frequency of occurrence of the participants’ private speech markers was reported and interpreted based on the emergent typology to compare collaborative and individual task completion in physical and digital modes. Regardless of the individual or collaborative nature of the task, private speech use decreased during the digital version of the game. However, collaborative tasks evoked more private speech from the participants regardless of modality. The findings of the study suggest digital media usage is likely to hinder private speech production for self-regulatory purposes in young adolescents, even in collaboration with peers.
... The use of relevant search strategies may correlate with child's age and semantic knowledge (Starr et al., 2020). However, age is likely not the only factor behind keeping track of children's own search behaviors, as this may rely on working memory capacity (e.g., Cowan et al., 2015) or verbal self-regulation of one's own search behaviors (e.g., Winsler, Carlton, & Barry, 2000). ...
... This, in turn, suggests that children may have not benefitted from the self-regulatory potential of private speech. The experimenters have indeed not noted such speech in the study, and previous findings showed that three-and four-year-olds were the least likely to engage in such speech in the presence of the adult and during activities that they have not selected themselves (e.g., Winsler, Carlton, & Barry, 2000). ...
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Using spatial cues, such as shape, orientation, and pattern, aids visuospatial working memory, as it allows strategies that reduce the load on this cognitive resource. One such strategy, namely taking advantage of patterned spatial distributions, remains understudied to date. This strategy demands keeping track of already-searched locations and excluding them from further search, and so correlates with visuospatial working memory. The use of such strategies should, in principle, develop in early childhood, but, as most studies focus on chunking, the development of other strategies reducing the load on working memory is understudied in young children. Therefore, in this study, we tested whether children between 2 and 4.5 years (N = 97) could take advantage of spatial cues in their search, and whether this ability correlated with their age, verbal ability, and visuospatial working memory. The results showed that the ability to use a patterned spatial distribution (searching a row of locations from one side to the other instead of a random search) significantly improved with visuospatial working memory but not age or verbal ability. These results suggest that visuospatial abilities may rapidly develop between 2 and 4.5 years, and given their impact on later mathematic achievement, demand increased attention in cognitive developmental research and early childhood education.
... It has been recommended that caregivers and teachers should allow private speech during tasks as it may help children regulate their behavior and allow them to complete a task (Winsler, Carlton, et al., 2000;Winsler, Diaz, et al., 2000;Winsler et al., 2007). However, certain forms of private speech may be associated with increased task difficulty, at least during an emotion regulation task, and may highlight the need for caregivers to intervene during a potentially difficult task (Day et al., 2018). ...
... Furthermore, private speech related to children's regulatory abilities within each context in different ways, which shows that different facets of self-regulation may be important to meeting the demands posed within different contexts. Observing children private speech gives caregivers a window into understanding their regulation (Winsler, Carlton, et al., 2000), which is important to understanding the multidimensional construct of self-regulation. ...
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Self-regulation includes the ability to control one’s behavior as needed to meet social expectations and is associated with adaptive developmental outcomes. One tool for self-regulation is private speech; however, research has not examined if children’s private speech is consistent across cognitively-focused and emotionally-focused contexts and if it is associated with regulatory abilities in similar ways. The goal of this study was to investigate relations between children’s private speech and their regulation in three contexts with varying emotional and cognitive demands with children’s age examined as a moderator of the association of private speech to regulation. Preschool-aged children’s (n = 122) private speech (vocalizations, inaudible muttering, task-irrelevant, negatively valenced, and facilitative) was transcribed and coded in three contexts: selective attention where children matched pictures according to certain rules, emotion regulation where children’s persistence in attempting to overcome an obstacle to achieve a goal was observed, and inhibitory control where the children were instructed to wait to color. Using linear mixed modeling, private speech did not significantly predict children’s regulatory abilities in the selective attention task; however, meaningful associations were found between private speech and regulation in the emotion regulation and inhibitory control contexts. Furthermore, age moderated the association of private speech to regulation in the inhibitory control context. Our findings that associations between private speech and regulation outcomes differed across contexts highlight the importance of examining self-regulation as a multidimensional construct and emphasize the importance of considering both cognitive and emotional demands for supporting children’s optimal self-regulation.
... Self-directed ostensive gestures with a self-regulation function are called private ostensive gestures, since their function is analogous to that of the private speech described by Vygotsky (1978; see also Winsler et al., 2000) and of private pointing (Carpendale & Carpendale, 2010). Private ostensive gestures are pauses in children's actions with objects in order to show or present the object to themselves and contemplate it (Carpenter et al., 1998). ...
Article
The first gestures that children produce intentionally to communicate with others, make sense of the world around them, and control their behavior are ostensive gestures of showing and giving; these are also the first gestures that parents and teachers use to communicate with children and to regulate their behavior in their first months of life. Ostensive gestures are proximal gestures in which the child’s hand is occupied by an object. In this sense, objects have a role in shaping children’s first communicative acts: They are the first referents children communicate about and the first means they use to share references with others. Despite their relevance to communicative development, a literature review highlights that there have been few studies investigating ostensive gestures in the first three years of life, while the study of distal gestures, especially pointing gestures, has prevailed. Some authors relate the relative absence of ostensive gestures in the literature to methodological issues that hinder their identification. Others question their nature as “true gestures” because they involve children’s contact with objects and therefore there can be doubt about their underlying intentionality. Increasing evidence has shown that ostensive gestures fulfill early communicative and self-regulatory functions from the end of the first year of life. These functions are very similar to the ones that are later observed in more complex gestures, such as pointing and symbolic gestures. This similarity provides a clear idea of progression in gesture development. Based on these ideas, this article has two main purposes: to describe ostensive gestures and reaffirm their important part in gesture development, and to explore the hypothesis that ostensive gestures not only precede pointing in development, but that they are one of pointing’s precursors, providing clues to the understanding of intentional communication’s origin.
... Indeed, the earlier emergence and internalization of private speech is associated with markers of behavioral and cognitive sophistication (Berk, 1986;Winsler et al., 2000b). Furthermore, there is evidence of increasingly task-relevant and goal-directed private speech in the preschool years (Winsler, Carlton & Barry, 2000a). Task-relevant overt private speech is most likely to occur when children are operating within their zone of proximal development (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005). ...
... Longitudinal research approaches have highlighted that single time-point comparisons may fail to account for differing developmental trajectories across at-risk and typically developing children thus obscuring interpretations of private speech for regulation in at-risk groups (Berk & Potts, 1991;Winsler et al., 2000a). Although the elevated use of private speech in response to difficulty has provided long-standing evidence of its regulatory role in typical development, there has been no direct investigation of this pattern in atypical development. ...
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Private speech is a cognitive tool to guide thinking and behavior, yet its regulatory use in atypical development remains equivocal. This study investigated the influence of task difficulty on private speech in preschool children with attention or language difficulties. Measures of private speech use, form and content were obtained while 52 typically developing and 25 developmentally at-risk three- to four-year-old children completed Duplo construction and card sort tasks, each comprising two levels of challenge. In line with previous research, developmentally at-risk children used less internalized private speech than typically developing peers. However, both typically developing and at-risk children demonstrated a similar regulatory private speech response to difficulty with no systematic evidence of group difference. This was captured by an increase in all utterances, reduced private speech internalization, and more frequent forethought and self-reflective content. Results support the hypothesis of delayed private speech internalization but not regulatory deviance in atypical development.
... Age-related differences within the same category might be explained by the findings of Winsler, Carlton and Barry (2000). They found that "most four-yearold children's private speech occurred during the tacitly structured, self-selected activity classroom setting, focused, goal-directed activity and in the context of sustained activity. ...
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In the present study, the content of private speech that Turkish monolingual children produced was investigated. Data were obtained from 28 children between the ages of 3;1 and 5;7 in three age groups while they were playing with a wooden toy house and its figures. The content categories of Winsler et al. (2003) were used in this study with a slight alteration in one of the categories due to the nature of the data. The results obtained in this study presented both similarities and differences with the existing literature. Children in all age groups produced the highest amount of private speech in Description of the Environment and Task category. There were no private speech utterances in Motivational/Evaluative Statements in children’s private speech. The results suggest that planning, problem solving and self-regulatory functions of private speech are represented in its content. In addition, linguistic and pragmatic features of social speech are observed in the content and language of private speech.
... The non-parametric association was appropriate also to describe potentially non-normally distributed speech count variables, and skewed data. With private speech observations, it is common to see many children rarely talking, and some children talking often (Winsler et al., 2000). Metrics were calculated to deal with idiosyncratic differences in observation due to length of time or opportunities for speech (Winsler et al., 2000). ...
... With private speech observations, it is common to see many children rarely talking, and some children talking often (Winsler et al., 2000). Metrics were calculated to deal with idiosyncratic differences in observation due to length of time or opportunities for speech (Winsler et al., 2000). Speech frequency coded in the practice setting was transformed into the rate of speech utterances over the period of time observed in practice in minutes (self-talk utterances per minute). ...
Article
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Purpose: Motivation among young athletes can be reflected in their self-talk, a behavior that is often encouraged by coaches. Most research on self-talk in sport involves self-report, thus observational studies of the actual self-talk used in sport in relation to athlete motivation and coach support are needed. Methods: We observed young elite tennis athletes (N = 28) talking to themselves on the court and obtained self-reported measures of self-talk use, goal-orientation for sport, perception of coach motivational climate, and coach encouragement of self-talk. Results Results showed that higher levels of perceived coach mastery climate and personal mastery orientation typically coincided with more reported use of positive self-talk, while higher levels of perceived ego climate coincided with more frequent observed positive and motivational self-talk on the court. Coaches generally encouraged self-talk, but associations between coach encouragement and athlete self-talk use were sparse. Conclusion: Results suggest researchers need to examine how encouragement of self-talk affects both reported (inner) and observed (external) self-talk in youth sport.
... While large inter-individual differences exist in children's private speech use, these appear to be relatively stable across tasks and time (Lidstone, Meins, & Fernyhough, 2011;Winsler et al., 2003). The developmental progression towards task-relevant content and markers of internalization is associated with both cognitive and behavioral sophistication (Berk, 1986;Winsler, Carlton, & Barry, 2000;Winsler, Diaz et al., 2000). In the present study we focused our investigation on 3-to 5-year-old children, a developmental stage characterized by more overt private speech thus increasing the opportunity to capture its content. ...
Article
Emerging in the preschool years, private speech provides a regulatory tool to support task performance. Here, we investigate the presence and nature of regulatory private speech content subtypes and their relationship to task performance in 3- to 5-year-old children. Seventy-one children completed a Duplo construction and an iPad-administered card sort task. Intelligible private speech utterances were coded according to task-relevance and across three regulatory phases – forethought content (planning, analytical and motivational), performance content (self-instructional, observational and attention focusing) and self-reflective content (evaluative and affect-laden). Children produced less task-relevant private speech during the card sort relative to the Duplo task. Children demonstrated all content subtypes with performance content being most prevalent. Forethought content was positively associated with Duplo construction accuracy when children were aged between 36 months to 54 months. In addition, there was a negative association between task-irrelevant content and Duplo construction accuracy. Our findings suggest that preschool children whose private speech contains more forethought content may experience greater success on similar tasks.
... Children's private speech has been found to vary in self-selected, center-based activities vs. free outdoor play and large group activities (Winsler, Carlton et al., 2000), and is influenced by the social presence of peers or adults (Berk & Spuhl, 1995). However, the effects of pedagogical contexts are relatively unexplored. ...
... In contrast, few studies have directly compared children's private speech across activities, and those that have are primarily naturalistic and non-experimental. These studies present mixed findings on how an activity's goal-oriented structure (or lack thereof) may affect the quantity and quality of private speech children produce (Krafft & Berk, 1998;Winsler & Diaz, 1995;Winsler, Carlton & Barry, 2000). These investigations have typically summed private speech across multiple naturalistic activities considered part of a broad category (e.g., open-ended vs. close-ended goal structures) rather than considering the specific demands of the individual activities. ...
... Consistent with these activity-specific views of language, children emphasized different types of speech for different types of activities. Previous studies indicate that children's self-regulatory private speech can vary by task difficulty (Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985), goal structure (Krafft & Berk, 1998;Winsler & Diaz, 1995), presence of peers or adults, self-selected activity center vs. outdoor free play context, and goal-directed vs. non goal-directed activities (Winsler, Carlton et al., 2000). In our study, these contextual factors were held constant between conditions and across activities, as both activities featured a close-ended, goal-directed structure, with social presence held constant, and child self-selection of activities was avoided. ...
Article
Vygotskian theory suggests that sociodramatic play, private speech, and motivation are deeply intertwined in development. This study used fishing and puzzle tasks to explore how preschoolers (N = 47) used private speech to verbally mediate their engagement and motivation in activities with differing demands. We experimentally manipulated pedagogical contexts by framing activities as sociodramatic play or task completion to examine the impact on private speech and motivation. Children’s private speech and motivation were both greater in the sociodramatic play condition. Children demonstrated stable individual differences across activities in frequencies of private speech and level of speech internalization, while also appearing to tailor private speech functions to the demands of each activity. Children’s performance and persistence were uncorrelated across activities and were related to different private speech categories within each activity. The results extend research on activity-specificity in language use to private speech, while underscoring how sociocultural contexts influence motivational development.