THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDRENS COMMUNICATION ABOUT NESTED SPATIALRELATIONS

This investigation examined how the nature of the spatial relation inf luences young children's ability to remember and communicate about nes ted landmarks. Of particular interest was whether young children are m ore likely to use a supporting than a proximal landmark to disambiguat e identical landmarks (e.g., ''it's in the basket on the table'' vs. ' 'it's in the basket next to the table''). 3- and 4-year-olds hid objec ts in a dollhouse and described their locations. Children had to disam biguate the target primary landmark by relating it to a supporting or proximal secondary landmark. Both age groups almost always provided th e primary landmark, but 4-year-olds were more likely to provide the se condary landmark than were 3-year-olds. Moreover, children were more s uccessful at providing supporting than proximal secondary landmarks, T hese results suggest that both referential communication skills and bi ases in coding location influence children's communication about neste d landmarks.