Task difficulty and private speech in typically developing and at-risk preschool children

Abstract

Private speech is a cognitive tool to guide thinking and behavior, yet its regulatory use in atypical development remains equivocal. This study investigated the influence of task difficulty on private speech in preschool children with attention or language difficulties. Measures of private speech use, form and content were obtained while 52 typically developing and 25 developmentally at-risk three- to four-year-old children completed Duplo construction and card sort tasks, each comprising two levels of challenge. In line with previous research, developmentally at-risk children used less internalized private speech than typically developing peers. However, both typically developing and at-risk children demonstrated a similar regulatory private speech response to difficulty with no systematic evidence of group difference. This was captured by an increase in all utterances, reduced private speech internalization, and more frequent forethought and self-reflective content. Results support the hypothesis of delayed private speech internalization but not regulatory deviance in atypical development.

Children’s rehearsal development parallels that of self-talk in other executive functions.

“…However, self-talk is not monolithic during childhood. Generally, self-talk interacts with task difficulty and transitions in purpose (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005; Mulvihill et al, 2023). Children initially use a reactive form of self-talk to narrate events as they happen but transition to proactive self-talk that precedes forthcoming events or actions (Duncan & Pratt, 1997).…”

“…Children initially use a reactive form of self-talk to narrate events as they happen but transition to proactive self-talk that precedes forthcoming events or actions (Duncan & Pratt, 1997). Importantly, increased task difficulty is associated with greater frequency of both proactive self-talk during the task and post-task self-reflections, which become a template for later proactive utterances (Mulvihill et al, 2023). If the developmental trajectory of rehearsal aligns with the developmental trajectory of other forms of self-talk, then observable rehearsal should fluctuate in response to task difficulty and transition from serving a reactive purpose to a proactive purpose across development.…”