The role of private speech in the transition from collaborative to independent task performance in young children

The roles of private speech and inner speech in planning during middle childhood: Evidence from a dual task paradigm

“…A cognitive task is thought to be reliant on self-directed speech if private speech production predicts either concurrent or future performance in children. For example, Winsler, Diaz, and Montero (1997) had preschoolers perform a selective attention task, each trial of which required them to determine which of two perceptual dimensions (shape or color) was shared by two pictures, and then to select, from a group of alternatives, the answer card that represented the shared dimension. After receiving guidance from an experimenter, children were more likely to succeed if they used private 4 Running head: ROLES OF PRIVATE AND INNER SPEECH IN PLANNING speech than if they were silent.…”

“…Therefore each trial was coded as containing or not containing task-relevant private speech (Levels 2 and 3 together). A trial-based metric was chosen as rate-based metrics (such as utterances per minute) risk confounding general verbosity with the degree of dependence on private speech (Winsler et al, 1997), especially where it is not possible to control for verbosity by partialing out social speech production (see Winsler et al, 2005). A second researcher independently coded 20% (six) of the recordings.…”

Effects of Private Speech on Math Problem Solving Performance of Fifth Grade Male Students

“…While external manifestations related to internal speck task (such as inaudible speaking and movement of the lips and tongue) increases by age increase. Winsler et al (1997) in a sample (n = 40) of 3 -5 years old children found task related private speech has curve relationship with the age. Winsler and Naglieri (2003) investigated implicit and explicit verbal strategies of problem solving, developmental turns, awareness of used strategies and relationship with performance in task in a large sample of 5 -17 years old children (n = 2,156).…”

“…For example, within private speech development in early preschool years, the authors provided public support for Vygotesky's predictions on age related changes in experience and structure of this form of speech, and it was specified private speech passes a predictable path; from explicit irrelevant task speech to explicitly relevant task speech such as selfregulation statements and finally as external manifestations of internal speech such as whispering, chattering and inaudible whisper (e.g. Berk, 1986;Berk and Garvin, 1984;Bivens and Berk, 1990;Kohlberg, Yager and Hjertholm, 1968;Winsler, Diaz, and Montero, 1997). However, there is limited support for this view of Vygotesky that private speech is preschool years and elementary school has implicit state (underground structure) (Fernyhough and Fradley, 2005).…”

“…For older children, Berk found those who were able to internalize their private speech, showed better performance in math tests. Winsler et al (1997) examined main hypotheses of Vygotesky's theory regarding private speech performance on preschool children. Forty preschool students at age 3 -5 performed a task which required selective attention.…”