Let Them Talk
Tue Apr 01, 2008 at 09:16:28 AM PDT
Cross-posted at Fussbucket
One of my favorite things to do is to listen to my four-year old son Sage talk to himself when he's busy doing something. He totally uninhibited, talking about what he's doing or pretending he's hanging out with some of his imaginary friends. Often it happens when he's concentrating, like building train tracks, or coloring, or doing a puzzle.
A new study shows that not only is this chattering pretty damn cute, it's useful. According to this article in Science Daily, parents should encourage pre-schoolers to talk to themselves.
Parents should not worry when their pre-schoolers talk to themselves; in fact, they should encourage it, says Adam Winsler, an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University. His recent study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly showed that 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud (either spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult) than when they are silent.
"Young children often talk to themselves as they go about their daily activities, and parents and teachers shouldn’t think of this as weird or bad," says Winsler. "On the contrary, they should listen to the private speech of kids. It's a fantastic window into the minds of children."
In the study, "'Should I let them talk?': Private speech and task performance among preschool children with and without behavior problems," 78 percent of the children performed either the same or better on the performance task when speaking to themselves than when they were silent, the article says.
The study also showed that children with behavioral problems (such as those diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD) tend to talk to themselves more often than children without signs of behavior problems. "Given that kids with behavior concerns need more direction and control from adults, teachers may unnecessarily ask children to be quiet in classrooms out of fear that such speech coming from difficult-to-manage kids will lead to problem behavior," says Winsler. "Yet non-disruptive private speech would actually help these children as they develop."
Winsler says that private speech is very common and perfectly normal among children between the ages of 2 and 5. As children begin talking to themselves, their communication skills with the outside world improve. "This is when language comes inside," says Winsler. "As these two communication processes merge, children use private speech in the transition period. It's a critical period for children, and defines us as human beings."
Winsler also conducted the first-ever study looking at private speech in children with autism. He found that high-functioning autistic children talk to themselves often and in the same ways that non-autistic children do. Talking aloud also improved their performance on tasks. " The study, "Private Speech and Executive Functioning among High-Functioning Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders," was published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
When I was a teacher of 25 first-graders, I quickly realized that there was no way I was going to be able to keep them all quiet. And when I thought about it, why should I? Would I like it if I had to sit and be quiet for six hours and listen to my teacher do all the talking? Nope. So I moved their desks into clusters instead of rows and let them talk while they were doing seat work.
And actually, some of my best memories are of conversations I overheard as I moved through the room. What do you think? Do your kids talk to themselves?
