Research on children's referential communication has focused primarily on the role of the speaker; the listener's role has remained largely unexplored. The development of listener skills during childhood and the effects of introducing a brief plan for effective listening on children's listener performances were investigated in this study. Twenty-four children at each of four ages (4, 6, 8, and 10 years) played the role of listener in a referential communication game. The speaker was an adult confederate, who produced messages of varying informational adequacy. After 12 pretest trials on the communication game to assess baseline listener performance, half of the subjects were given a plan for effective listening. All subjects then participated in 12 additional trials. Significant development of listener skills was observed; older children asked more questions and chose more correct referents than younger children. The plan facilitated the performances of all but the 4year-olds. These findings suggest both the importance of the listener within the referential communication situation and the relevance of plans for efforts to facilitate the development of communication skills.In studies of referential communication, a tion between children in this kind of situaspeaker is asked to transmit, by purely verbal means, some specified information to a listener. These studies indicate that while communication between preschool children is often quite ineffective, accuracy of communication improves gradually over the elementary school years (Glucksberg,

A battery of 12 neuropsychological tests were administered on two occasions to 15 chronic PCP users who reduced or eliminated use of PCP over a 4‐week period. A comparison sample of 15 non‐PCP drug users who did not differ in age, sex, education, and ethnic composition also were tested at the two time periods. Impairment, initially higher for PCP users, decreased significantly after reduction in use of PCP. A nonsignificant increase in impairment was found for non‐PCP drug users. Analysis of each variable revealed that substantial improvement occurred on the acquisition, recall, and delayed recall scores of the Randt Memory Test. Improvement also was noted for some individuals on Trails B and Digit Symbol tests.

This study sought to identify and describe nonverbal indicants of comprehension and noncomprehension in young listeners in the context of referential communication. Relationships between the children's verbal and nonverbal behavior were also examined. Children at 4, 6, 8, and 10 years of age served as listeners. An adult speaker produced messages of varying informational adequacy. Analyses of videotape records revealed that children at each of the four ages exhibited markedly different nonverbal behavior in response to informative as compared to uninformative messages. In the absence of verbal responding, children at all ages showed more hand movement and longer reaction times when messages were uninformative. Preschoolers made more eye contact with the speaker when the message was uninformative, but their amount of body movement was unaffected; the reverse was true for kindergartners and second graders. The data also revealed that when verbal responding was initiated, it was simply added onto the already established patterns of nonverbal behavior; no evidence was found for the hypothesis that verbal responding replaces or substitutes for nonverbal responses.Although considerable research has been exceptions (e.g., Ironsmith & Whitehurst, devoted to the study of children 's nonverbal 1978b; Peterson, Banner, & Flavell, 1972), behavior in recent years (Blurton-Jones, the possible role of nonverbal cues in chil-1972;Knapp, 1972), little is known about the dren's referential communication has been role of nonverbal signals in the development overlooked. In this study, we sought to of referential communication. Research has identify nonverbal indicants of comprefocused on children's developing verbal hension and noncomprehension in young abilities as speakers (Glucksberg & Krauss, listeners and to examine the manner in 1967; Krauss & Glucksberg, 1969) and lis-which verbal and nonverbal responses to teners (Cosgrove & Patterson, 1977; Iron-referential clarity and ambiguity are cosmith & Whitehurst, 1978a; Patterson, ordinated. Massad, & Cosgrove, 1978), but with rareThe data were collected in the context of another study of children's communication

We investigated the effects of two plans on children's listener behavior in a referential communication setting. The design systematically varied the presence and absence of instructions about apian to engage in comparison activities (comparison plan) and instructions about a plan to request more information if the speaker's message was ambiguous (action plan). Ninety-four elementary school children played the role of listener. The speaker was an adult confederate who produced messages of varying informational adequacy. Results showed that on an immediate test, children who received the action plan asked more questions .when the messages were ambiguous and made more correct referent choices than other subjects. These effects persisted on a test administered 2 weeks later and were observed both for nameable and abstract stimulus items. No significant effect of the comparison plan was observed. Overall, the results suggest that knowing when and how to request additional information is an important listener skill.Although studies of referential communi-study, for example, 4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-yearcation among children have focused mainly olds played the role of listener in a referenon the development of performance in the tial communication game. An adult speaker speaker role (Glucksberg, Krauss, & Hig-produced messages of varying informational gins, 1975), in recent research it has been adequacy. Significant development of lisshown that a variety of listener skills also tener skills was observed; 10-year-olds develop during childhood (Asher, 1976; asked more questions when the speaker's Bearison & Levey, 1977; Cosgrove & Pat-messages were inadequate and made more terson, 1977; Ironsmith & Whitehurst, in correct referent choices. More important in press).the present context, however, the introduc-In the Cosgrove and Patterson (1977) tion of a plan for effective listening, which stressed the importance of comparing refer-This research was supported by a National institute ents with the messages and requesting more of Mental Health Grant MH29423 and by National Sci-information if messages were inadequate, ence Foundation Grant BNS77-15277 to the first au-facilitated the performance of all but the th Tne authors are grateful to Catherine Carre.., Tyree *»*&* children. This latter finding has re-MacFariand, and Scott Wiley for their help in conduct-cently been replicated by Cosgrove and Pating the study. Special thanks are due to A. Hamilton terson (in press). Bishop, Diane Eliason, and the teachers of St. Anne's An important question raised by these re-Belneld School in Charlottesvi.ie, Virginia, for their sults con cerns the features of the plan that C °Erfor reprints should be sent to Charlotte were responsible for its efficacy. One cause Patterson, Department of Psychology, University of 01 children S initial failures might be a Virginia,

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