PRESCHOOL CHILDRENS MASTERY OF THE FORM CONTENT DISTINCTION IN COMMUNICATIVE TASKS/

Preschoolers' mastery of the form/content distinction in language and communication, along its contingency on the characteristics of particu lar task requirements and test procedures, was investigated in two stu dies. The theoretical concepts ''principle and ''theory of mind'' are closely related to the studies. A paraphrase task and a referential co mmunication task were used. In the paraphrase task, children from 3 to 6 years of age acted as ''messengers'' and judged whether or not a pa raphrase of a message was the same as what the child had said. The res ults in Study I indicated that children as young as 3 years of age rec ognized this kind of form/content distinction. Fewer children, in part icular the younger ones, succeeded with the referential communication task in Study 1. However, among the 6-year-olds, the two tasks showed a tendency to be significantly related. In Study 2, performance decrea sed among children of all ages, but in particular among the youngest c hildren. In Study 2, the two form/content tasks were not correlated in any age group. The general conclusion is that there is a range of tas ks, which may reveal awareness of the form/content distinction among y oung children, and that it is possible to construct task which could e nable young children to pay attention to this distinction. Aspects of awareness of the form/content distinction may start to develop early d uring the preschool period rather than appearing around the school sta rt. However, the question of why only some children, and not the major ity of them, develop this distinction at a very young age is unsettled as well as the consequences of this early development later on at sch ool.