The toddlers' regulation of speech during play

Abstract

The present investigation was aimed to study the relation of accompanying speech to the nonverbal activities during which it occurs, and to develop a method suitable for the study of the self-regulation of accompanying speech at the onset of language development. The underlying assumption of the study was that while engaged in a demanding nonverbal task toddlers will produce fewer vocalizations than when not so engaged.;Ten children in the age range of 16 to 28 months, 8 cross-sectionally and 2 longitudinally, were videotaped in two play conditions: In the Structured Play (SP), they were set to perform a specific task, e.g., to complete a puzzle. In the Free Play (FP) they were allowed to play freely with standard toys. Data collected by Cabrera (1987) for two children over 8-10 months was reanalyzed by means of the coding method and play criteria developed for the present study. Eight other children were given both tasks, allowing 8 minutes for each task. The eight subjects were tested in two sessions about two weeks apart.;The tapes were coded at 2-second intervals as to whether the child was visually and manually engaged with the toy (on) or not (off) and as to whether there was a vocalization or not.;It was hypothesized that while engaged in a moderately difficult nonverbal task, toddlers would reduce their speech. Three predictions were tested: (1) That toddlers would produce less speech while engaged in a nonverbal activity (i.e., {dollar}on{dollar} play) than when not so engaged (i.e., off play), because of competition for attentional resources, (2) that the effect of period ({dollar}on{dollar} vs. off play), will exhibit more contrast in a more demanding task (the SP), and (3) that children would produce shorter utterances while engaged in play. The first two predictions were confirmed, while the third prediction showed no statistical support.