Preschool gender differences in problem-solving discourse were further investigated. Spontaneous task-related talk of 103 preschool children (53 boys and 50 girls) was analyzed for the frequency of collaborative speech acts to explore a possible link with greater help-eliciting among girls. Girls were nearly exclusive users of collaborative speech. Those who used collaborative speech initiated more verbal turns, used more help-eliciting and self-disclosing speech, but did not differ in task performance. Pragmatic development and quality of teacher-child interaction is discussed.
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