Relationships Among Private Speech and Creativity Measurements of Young Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among thought processes represented in young children's private speech and creativity assessments of the same children. A secondary purpose was to study the role of affective private speech and its association with creativity measures. The sample was 42 preschool and kindergarten children on whom creativity measures were obtained using the Torrance Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) assessment instrument.Private speech was collected from the same children. Each private speech utterance was coded into one of five levels: (a) task irrelevant speech (T-1); (b) nonfacilitative, task relevant speech (T-2); (c) task relevant speech (T-3); (d) coping/reinforcing speech (T-4); and (e) solving speech (T-5). Statistical analysis revealed significant positive relationships among creativity measures, solving speech, and coping/reinforcing speech. Furthermore, coping and reinforcing private speech were consistently linked with high creativity measures, demonstrating that the affective domain may play a critical role in creative thinking.Over the past several decades the perception of giftedness has changed from rather restricted and conservative to quite broad, encompassing a var iety of characteristics (Congdon. 1985). Creativity has become an integral component of the expanded definition of giftedness (Davis & RiI1llTI, 1985;Renzulli. 1978; Torrarlce, 1984). However, the nature of creativity is complex and, to date. there is no single, uniformly accepted theory of its developr7tent or attributes (Treffinger, 1986). Consequently, most identification instruments and procedures tend to measure oiilk) certain aspects of creative behavior .Theoretical and empirical interest has focused on the information-processing abilities of creative learners (Borkowski & Peck. 1986: White, 1985. Studies have examined how thinking processes differ in children with superior iniellectual and creative attributes. This issue is of particular concern since it directly relates to curriculum planning for gifted students. In order to substantiate the need for programs for them that differ in content and teaming, it is crucial to demonstrate that these children think differently (Shore. 1986). Thus, identification procedures that center on characteristics and patterns involved in the creative process not <mly provide information on individual differences but i11so offer direction for educational planning and practice.One of the primary reasons little is known about creative cognitive processing is that evaluation has usually emphasized the behavior or the resulting product of the individual (Anderson, 1985). Sternberg (1988) argued that for greater understanding of creative performance, a move away from product measurement toward process measurement is necessary. According to Sternberg, an information-processing model of cognition provides an excellent medium for studying individual differences in problem-solving thinking patterns of young children. In addition, White (1985) sugge...

Private Speech Assessment: A Medium for Studying the Cognitive Processes of Young Creative Children

“…Conversely, this study did not produce replication of results in the role of coping/reinforcing private speech with creativity measures. As indicated in previous studies (Daugherty et al, 1994(Daugherty et al, , 1995, the frequency of coping/reinforcing speech was closely linked to creativity measures with its strongest positive influence identified with imagination measures. However in this investigation, only one category of private speech, metacognitive self-talk, predicted imagination scores.…”

“…As previously noted, creativity is only one facet of a rather broad definition of giftedness. Recent research that examined the semantic content of private speech in young creative children's problem-solving found that the frequency of "solving" speech significantly predicted higher creativity measures (Daugherty, White & Manning, 1994, 1995. In particular, the creative construct of originality was strongly influenced by self-talk that indicated a solution to a problem.…”

Private Speech in Illiterate Adults: Cognitive Functions, Task Difficulty, and Literacy

“…Of course, this contextual specificity is not exclusive of the speech internalization process. Several studies have shown similar results in relation to concept formation and grouping skills, memory development, reasoning, and arguing skills (Cole and Scribner 1977;Daugherty 1993;Daugherty et al 1994;Matuga 2003).…”

Critical Excerpts (Critiques) On Children’s Behavioral Development (CBD)

“…Remarkably, the subsequent research, up to date, are fully guided either by Vygotsky [5][6][7][8] (e.g., Daugherty,) or Piaget [9] with only one major difference (if it can be seen and considered as a difference) is that, they used many alternatives to describe the concept of CPS such as self-verbalization [10] self-directed speech [11], and, most recently, self-talk [12] without explaining why those alternatives! Ironically, all those alternatives refer to the same phenomenon of children's overt speech to themselves during learning tasks as Vygotsky and Piaget already introduced!…”