Human ontogeny entails the construction and use of semiotic mediational means to regulate psychological functions intrapersonally and interpersonally. In the Vygotskyan school of thought, speech is regarded as both a mediatory tool and a mediated higher mental function and, as such, is considered central to the development of children's cognition. Grounded in Vygotsky's work on speech as an instrument of thought, this study examined the dynamics of verbal mediation of children's problem solving with specific focus on the use of social, private and inner speech. The study investigated the incidence and semantic composition of speech produced during problem solving and delineated the age related changes of the semantic profile of private speech in relation to social speech and inner speech. A total of 120 children, aged from 5 years, 6 months to 9 years, 5 months, with equal distribution of boys and girls, completed the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices. The participants within the four age groups were of different ethnic origin but all spoke English as their first language. The results indicated that children relied extensively on all three types of speech and that the semantic content of both social and private speech was primarily task-oriented. Unlike social speech, private speech presented with a dual, cognition-centred and emotions-centred semantic profile, in which complex age-related changes, as shown by a one-way MANCOVA, permeated children's verbal denotations of salient task-related dynamics. Importantly, significations of emotional processes featured consistently in the content composition of private speech and showed a steady age-related occurrence. It was concluded that verbal mediation of children's problem solving is multimodal, multifocal and multidirectional.
BerkL. E. (1992). Children's private speech: An overview of theory and the status of research. In DiazR.BerkL. (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 17–53). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
2.
BerkL.GarvinR. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20, 271–286. doi: 10.1037/0012–1649.20.2.271
3.
BerkL. E.PottsM. K. (1991). Development and functional significance of private speech among attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered and normal boys. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 19, 357–377.doi: 10.1007/BF00911237
4.
CarpenterP. A.JustM. A.ShellP. (1990). What one intelligence test measures: A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Psychological Review, 97, 404–431. doi: 10.1037/0033–295X.97.3.404
5.
ColeM.EngestromY. (2007). Cultural-historical approaches to designing for development. In ValsinerJ.RosaA. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 484–507). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
6.
DiazR. M. (1992). Methodological concerns in the study of private speech. In DiazR.BerkL. (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 55–81). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
7.
DiazR. M.WinslerA.AtencioD. J.HarbersK. (1992). Mediation of self-regulation through the use of private speech. International Journal of Cognitive Education and Mediated Learning, 2, 155–167. No URLs defined
8.
FemyhoughC. (2008). Getting Vygotskian about theory of mind: Mediation, dialogue, and the development of social understanding. Developmental Review, 28, 225–262. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2007.03.001
9.
FernyhoughC.FradleyE. (2005). Private speech on executive task: Relations with task difficulty and task performance. Cognitive Development, 20, 103–120. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.11.002
10.
FusonK. C. (1979). The development of self-regulatory aspects of private speech: A Review. In ZivinG. (Ed.), The development of self regulation through private speech (pp. 135–217). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons
11.
FurrowD. (1992). Developmental trends in the differentiation of social and private speech. In DiazR.BerkL. (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 143–158). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
12.
GartonA. F. (2004). Exploring cognitive development: The child as problem solver.Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
13.
GevaS.JonesS.CrinionJ.PriceC.BaronJ.WarburtonE. (2011). The neural correlates of inner speech defined by voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Brain, 134, 3071–3082. doi: 10.1093/brain/awr232
14.
GillenJ. (2000). Listening to young children talking on the telephone: A reassessment of Vygotsky's notion of egocentric speech. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1(2), 171–184. doi: 10.2304/ciec.2000.1.2.5
15.
GirbauD. (2002). Private and social speech in children's dyadic communication in a naturalistic context. Anuario de Psicologia, 33(3), 339–354. doi: index.php/AnuarioPsicologia/article/view/61620
GoudenaP. P. (1992). The problem of abbreviation and internalisation of private speech. In DiazR.BerkL. (Eds.), Private speech: From social interaction to self-regulation (pp. 215–224). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum
18.
JonesS. (2009). The neuropsychology of covert and overt speech: Implications for the study of private speech in children and adults. In WinslerA.FernyhoughC.MonteroI. (Eds.), Private speech, executive functioning, and the development of verbal self-regulation (pp. 69–80). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
19.
John-SteinerV. (2007). Vygotsky on thinking and speaking. In DanielsH.ColeM.WertschJ. V. (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 136–152). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
20.
KarpovY. (2005). The Neo-Vygotskian approach to child development.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
21.
KozulinA. (2005). The concept of activity in Soviet psychology: Vygotsky, his disciples and critics. In DanielsH. (Ed.), An introduction to Vygotsky (2nd ed., pp. 101–123). Hove, UK: Routledge
22.
LevinaR. E. (1981). L. S. Vygotsky's ideas about the planning function of speech in children. In WertschJ. V. (Ed.), The concept of activity in Soviet psychology (pp. 279–299). Armonk, NY: Sharpe
23.
LezakM. D.HowiesonD. B.LoringD. W. (2004). Neuropsychological assessment (4th ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press
24.
LuriaA. R. (1973). The working brain.New York, NY: Basic Books
ManfraL.WinslerA. (2006). Preschool children's awareness of private speech. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 30(6), 537–549. doi: 10.1177/0165025406072902
27.
MatugaJ. M. (2003). Children's private speech during algorithmic and heuristic drawing tasks. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 28(4), 552–572. doi: 10.1016/S0361–476X(02)00061–9
28.
MirolliM.ParisiD. (2011). Towards a Vygotskyan cognitive robotics: The role of language as a cognitive tool. New Ideas in Psychology, 29, 298–311. doi: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2009.07.001
29.
RavenJ.RavenJ. C.CourtJ. H. (1998). Manual for Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales. Section 2: The Coloured Progressive Matrices.Oxford, UK: Oxford Psychologists Press
30.
San MartinMartinez C.CalbetBoadai H.FeigenbaumP. (2011). Private and inner speech and the regulation of social speech communication. Cognitive Development, 26(3), 214–229. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2011.05.001
31.
StetsenkoA. (2004). Introduction. Scientific legacy: Tool and sign in the development of the child. In RieberR.W.RobinsonD. K. (Eds.), The Essential Vygotsky (pp. 501–512). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
32.
ValsinerJ. (2001). Process structure of semiotic mediation in human development. Human Development, 44, 84–97. doi: 10.1159/000057048
33.
VygotskyL. S. (1986). Thought and language.Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press
34.
WertschJ. V. (2007). Mediation. In DanielsH.ColeM.WertschJ. V. (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 178–192). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
35.
WinslerA. (1998). Parent-child interaction and private speech in boys with ADHD. Applied Developmental Science, 2, 17–39. doi: 10.1207/s1532480xads0201_2
36.
WinslerA. (2009). Still talking to ourselves after all these years: A review of current research on private speech. In WinslerA.FernyhoughC.MonteroI. (Eds.), Private speech, executive functioning, and the development of verbal self-regulation (pp. 3–41). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
WinslerA.De LeonJ. R.WallaceB. A.CarltonM. P.Willson-QuayleA. (2003). Private speech in preschool children: Developmental stability and change, across-task consistency, and relations with classroom behaviour. Journal of Child Language, 30, 583–608. doi: 10.1017/S0305000903005671
39.
ZinchenkoV. P. (2007). Thought and word: The approaches of L. S. Vygotsky and G.G. Shpet. In DanielsH.ColeM.WertschJ. V. (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 212–245). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
