Adam Winsler

Overt and Covert Verbal Problem‐Solving Strategies: Developmental Trends in Use, Awareness, and Relations With Task Performance in Children Aged 5 to 17

Age-related changes in childrens use, self report, and awareness of verbal problem-solving strategies (private speech) and strategy effectiveness were explored with a large (N = 2,156) cross-sectional sample of children aged 5 to 17. Childrens verbal strategies moved from overt, to partially covert, to fully covert forms with age. Self-reports of verbal strategy use were accurate yet incomplete. Awareness of childrens use of verbal strategies was low and increased with age. Although verbal strategies were associated with competence among the youngest children, self-talk was unrelated to task performance for older children, suggesting considerable persistence over time of a relatively ineffective strategy. Awareness was not a prerequisite for childrens verbal strategy use but was positively associated with strategy effectiveness among those who talked.

Self-Regulation and Ability Predictors of Academic Success during College: A Predictive Validity Study.

Knowledge about self-regulation and motivation processes enables students to maximize their college career paths and allows universities to implement better intervention programs to encourage struggling students to persist and complete their educational studies. College administrators and instructors should focus on developing interventions to instill a healthy sense of self-efficacy in students and teach them how to manage their time effectively. Interventions in the form of learning how to learn courses and/or workshops should be designed specifically for first-year students to provide them with helpful adjustment strategies such as setting strategic goals, planning effectively throughout the first year of undergraduate study, and seeking help when needed. Furthermore, instructors of introductory-level classes should provide first-year students with successful peer role models to enhance their self-efficacy beliefs in completing their course requirements. For example, they can make available samples of past projects to their current students, which may allow them to observe successful peers and encourage them to believe that they can succeed. Equipping students with self-regulatory strategies and positive motivational beliefs earlier on in their studies will prepare and sustain their motivation for more demanding, upper level courses as they progress through their academic career.

Behavior Problems and Social Skills in Preschool Children: Parent-Teacher Agreement and Relations with Classroom Observations

The goals of the present investigation were to provide basic psychometric information about the use of the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales (PKBS: Merrill, 1994) with a sample of normally-developing preschool children, to assess agreement between parent and teacher ratings of children on this instrument, and to assess concurrent, criterion-related validity of these instruments in terms of their relations with observations of childrens behavior in the classroom. Parents and teachers of 47 preschool children completed the scales and these children were observed naturalistically in the classroom setting. Overall, agreement between parents and teachers was modest (–.09 to .38). Cross-informant correlations were poor (–.09 to .27) for social skills, low (.15 to .36) for internalizing behaviors, and modest (.29 to .38) for externalizing behavior. Both parents and teachers rated boys as having more externalizing behavior problems than girls. Parents perceived their children to have more externalizing, and more overall, behavior problems than did teachers. In general, teacher reports, but not parent reports, were significantly associated with childrens independently observed goal-directed activity, sustained attention, inappropriate behavior, peer affiliation, expressed negative affect, and proximity to a teacher in the classroom. Results argue for the clinical utility of the PKBS for teacher-report assessment of child behavior problems and social skills in the preschool years, and suggest the need for cross-contextual assessment. Also, it is clear that childrens behavioral and social competence are crucial for optimal functioning in the preschool setting.

The Role of Private Speech in the Transition from Collaborative to Independent Task Performance in Young Children.

Abstract This study was designed to examine the following central Vygotskian hypotheses about the functions of preschool childrens private speech: (1) that private speech facilitates the transition from collaborative to independent task performance, and (2) that childrens use of private speech is conducive to task success. Age-related changes in childrens use of private speech were also examined. Forty preschoolers, ranging in age from three to five, completed a selective attention task with scaffolded assistance given from an experimenter when needed. In an effort to overcome several methodological limitations found in previous research, a new microgenetic method of analyzing speech-performance relations based on assigning task items to discrete categories reflecting six possible co-occurrences between private speech (item-relevant speech, item-irrelevant speech, silence) and performance (success, failure) was introduced. Results were that (1) item-relevant speech was used more often during successful than during failed items while the opposite was true for item-irrelevant speech; (2) children were more likely to use private speech on successful items after scaffolding than they were on similar items not following scaffolding; (3) after scaffolding, children were more likely to succeed on the next item if they talked to themselves than if they were silent; and (4) hypothesized curvilinear, age-related patterns in childrens item-relevant private speech and silence were found, however, only when analyzing speech during successful items. Implications of this research for preschool teachers and parents are discussed.

Private speech, executive functioning, and the development of verbal self-regulation

Preface Laura Berk Introduction/Overview Adam Winsler, Charles Fernyhough and Ignacio Montero Part I. Overview, Theoretical, and Biological Foundations: 1. Still talking to ourselves after all these years: a review of current research on private speech Adam Winsler 2. Dialogic thinking Charles Fernyhough 3. The executive functions of language in preschool children Ulrich Muller, Sophie Jaques, Karin Brocki and Philip David Zelazo 4. The neuropsychology of covert and overt speech: implications for the study of private speech in children and adults Simon Jones Part II. Language, Communication, Social Cognition and Awareness: 5. Talking and thinking: the role of speech in social understanding Jeremy Carpendale, Charles Lewis, Noah Susswein and Joanna Lunn 6. Private speech and theory of mind: evidence for developing functional relations Charles Fernyhough and Elizabeth Meins 7. Development of communicative competence through private and inner speech Peter Feigenbaum 8. Private speech in the framework of referential communication Conchi San Martin Martinez, Humbert Boada and Maria Forns Santacana 9. Preschool childrens awareness and theory of speech Louis Manfra 10. Younger childrens knowledge about overt and covert private speech John Flavell and Adrian A. Wong Part III. Symbols and Tools Throughout the Lifespan: 11. Private pointing and private speech: development of executive function Begona Delgado, Juan Carolos Gomez and Encarnacion Sarria 12. Symbols as tools in the development of executive function Stephanie Carlson and Danielle M. Beck 13. On the persistence of private speech: empirical and theoretical considerations Robert M. Duncan and Donato Tartulli 14. Private speech beyond childhood: testing the developmental hypothesis Jose Sanchez-Medina, David Alarcon Rubio and Manuel de la Mata Part IV. Motivational and Educational Applications: 15. Private speech and motivation: the role of language in a sociocultural account of motivational processes David J. Atencio and Ignacio Montero 16. Creativity and private speech in young children C. Stephen White and Martha Daugherty 17. Early childhood teachers awareness, beliefs, and practices toward childrens private speech Carla Deniz Afterword James Wertsch.

Private speech in preschool children: developmental stability and change, across-task consistency, and relations with classroom behaviour*

This study examined (a) developmental stability and change in childrens private speech during the preschool years, (b) across-task consistency in childrens self-speech, and (c) across-setting relations between childrens private speech in the laboratory and their behaviour at home and in the preschool classroom. A group of 32 normally developing three- and four-year-old children was observed twice (six month interobservation interval) while engaging in the same individual problem-solving tasks. Measures of private speech were collected from transcribed videotapes. Naturalistic observations of childrens behaviour in the preschool classroom were conducted, and teachers and parents reported on childrens behaviour at home and school. Individual differences in preschool childrens private speech use were generally stable across tasks and time and related to childrens observed and reported behaviour at school and home. Children whose private speech was more partially internalized had fewer externalizing behaviour problems and better social skills as reported by parents and teachers. Children whose private speech was largely task-irrelevant engaged in less goal-directed behaviour in the classroom, expressed more negative affect in the classroom, and rated as having poorer social skills and more behaviour problems. Developmental change occurred during the preschool years in childrens use and internalization of private speech during problem-solving in the form of a reduction over time in the total number of social speech utterances, a decrease in the average number of words per utterance, and an increase in the proportion of private speech that was partially internalized.

The effects of maternal parenting style and religious commitment on self-regulation, academic achievement, and risk behavior among African-American parochial college students *

This study explored relations between religiosity, both parent and student, and maternal parenting style and student academic self-regulation, academic achievement, and risk behavior among African-American youth attending a parochial college. Eighty-five students completed self-report survey measures of religiosity, self-regulation, academic achievement, and risk behavior. Participants also completed youth report measures of parental religiosity and perceived maternal parenting style. Correlational analyses show authoritative parenting to be associated with high levels of academic performance and study skills. Additional correlations revealed that highly religious students tend to perform well academically, study better, and engage in fewer risk behaviors than youth less committed to religion. Although no direct relations were observed between parenting style and student religiosity, maternal parenting style was found to moderate relations between parental and student religiosity. Findings are discussed in terms of their relevance to the population studied.

Mother-Child Interaction, Private Speech, and Task Performance in Preschool Children with Behavior Problems

The purpose of the present study was to explore patterns of mother-child interaction, childrens private speech use, and behavioral self-regulation among a sample of preschool children identified by their preschool teachers as evidencing behavior problems. Forty preschoolers were classified into two groups (behaviorally at-risk and a matched comparison group) on the basis of teacher ratings of impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity. Children completed a magnet board puzzle task once in collaboration with their mother and once individually, and maternal and child speech and behavior were coded from videotapes. Although there were no group differences in childrens behavior or speech during the collaborative session, nor were there differences in childrens individual task performance or on-task attention, mother-child interaction involving behaviorally at-risk children was characterized by more other-regulation, negative control, less praise, and less physical withdrawal over time, compared to interactions involving comparison children. Behaviorally at-risk children, compared to controls, used more overt, task-relevant private speech during individual problem solving. Partially internalized private speech use among at-risk preschoolers was positively associated with task performance. Group differences rather than similarities prevailed in terms of the relations between maternal behavior, child speech, and child performance.

Young Children's Video/Computer Game Use: Relations with School Performance and Behavior

This study examined the amount and content of childrens video game playing in relation with behavioral and academic outcomes. Relationships among playing context, child gender, and parental monitoring were explored. Data were obtained through parent report of childs game play, behavior, and school performance. Results revealed that time spent playing games was related positively to aggression and negatively to school competence. Violent content was correlated positively and educational content negatively with attention problems. Educational games were related to good academic achievement. Results suggest violent games, and a large amount of game play, are related to troublesome behavioral and academic outcomes, but educational games may be related to positive outcomes. Neither gender nor parental monitoring emerged as significant moderators of these effects.

Age-related changes in preschool children's systematic use of private speech in a natural setting

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 were conducted using a time-sampling procedure in two preschool classrooms over the course of one semester. Results from logistic regression analyses revealed that both age groups were (a) more likely to use private speech during the self-selected activity classroom context as opposed to both large group and outside free play classroom contexts, and (b) most likely to talk to themselves when alone, next likely in the presence of peers, and least likely when in the presence of a teacher. Although the probability of private speech among three-year-old children did not vary as a function of the childs immediate activity, four-year-old childrens private speech was more likely to occur during sustained and focused goal-directed activity as opposed to rapidly-changing and non goal-directed activity. The findings suggest that private speech appears systematically in young children and that, in several ways, four-year-old children use private speech more selectively than three-year-olds.