Verbal Mediation of Problem Solving in Pre-Primary and Junior Primary School Children

Abstract

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.