Spontaneous private speech and performance on a delayed match-to-sample task

Spontaneous private speech samples were obtained from 65 kindergarten children (mean age 70.3 months) from one suburban (n = 36) and one city (n = 29) school as they worked alone on a delayed match-to-sample (DMS) task with three levels of difficulty (2, 10, and 30 sec delays). As expected increases in DMS delay intervals produced decreased performance and increases in private speech. The expected increased positive relationship between task relevant private speech and performance for longer delays was found in city children but not suburban children. Since mean IQ scores were significantly different for the two groups this variable was further examined in post hoc analyses and discussed along with socio-economic status as possible explanations for the observed school-sample differences. A within-subject comparison for all children showed the percentage of speaking trials correct at 30-sec delay to be significantly greater than the percentage of nonspeaking trials correct. The effect of one experimenter modeled trial on a subsequent 10 trials at 30-sec delay was to increase speech and performance and to show a stronger relationship between speech and performance than for premodeling trials. These exploratory findings with a relatively simple two color matching task suggest further explorations of spontaneous private speech as a way of studying internalization of self regulatory cognitive strategies.