THE DEVELOPMENT OF REFERENTIAL COMMUNICATION - LEARNING TO SPEAK AND LEARNING TO PROCESS VERBAL INFORMATION ARE NOT THE SAME THING

The development of children's ability to become effective speakers and listeners once they have acquired language has been widely investigat ed using the referential communication paradigm. There has not been, h owever, a systematic investigation of these abilities across the entir e primary school age range. A balanced sample, with respect to age, se x and socioeconomic status (SES), of 922 children (538 in Rome, 384 in Manchester; 6-11 years) were given a 30-item test of speaker and list ener skills using a variety of pictorial materials. The results were s cored using a response coding scheme and showed that the ability to re spond as listeners to adequate messages was generally good. The countr y, SES, and age variables were significant on all measures, with Itali an, higher SES, and older children tending to perform better. Gender w as not a significant factor. Speaker performance was significantly bet ter than listener performance (to inadequate messages) at all ages tho ugh the gap narrowed with age. The analysis revealed a variety of stra tegies used by speakers and listeners. The use of redundant informatio n by speakers differed as a function of country but not of age. Older children were more likely to use a comparative rather than a local str ategy, both as speakers and as listeners, which revealed sensitivity t o the relationship between messages and the referential context. While most children understand the rudiments of referential communication b y the end of the primary school years, growth is protracted and there is a substantial proportion who perform poorly. Explanations for these findings are discussed.