Children's Rehearsal Development Parallels That of Self-Talk in Other Executive Functions

• Published in: Developmental psychology 2024-07, Vol.60 (7), p.1237-1243
• Main Authors: AuBuchon, Angela M., Wagner, Rebecca L., Sackinsky, Margaret
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Childhood Development; Children; Cognitive Ability; Female; Human; Male; Practice; Rehearsal; Repetition; Self-Talk; Selftalk; Short Term Memory
• ISSN: 0012-1649; 1939-0599; 1939-0599
• DOI: 10.1037/dev0001697

Rehearsal is a form of self-talk used to support short-term memory. Historically, the study of rehearsal development has diverged from the study of self-talk more generally. The current experiment examines whether two characteristics of self-talk (impact of task difficulty and self-talk's narrative vs. planning purpose) are also observed in rehearsal. Eighty children, ages 4-7, were tasked with remembering the three-item and six-item lists over a 15-s delay. Children's spontaneous use of fixed rehearsal (i.e., immediate repetition of a just-presented item) and cumulative rehearsal (i.e., cycling through multiple items at a time) was documented from video recordings. Four-year-olds narrated item presentations using fixed rehearsal. Six- and seven-year-olds proactively planned for recall by engaging cumulative rehearsal. Five-year-olds used both forms of rehearsal, but their frequency of cumulative rehearsal was dependent on list length. Therefore, rehearsal is susceptible to task manipulations that affect other forms of self-talk. Public Significance StatementThis study outlined the developmental trajectory of two types of self-talk important in memory-fixed and cumulative rehearsal. These forms of rehearsal map onto reactive and proactive forms of self-talk that we all use throughout our lifetime, such as narrating our tasks or discussing our plans. Acknowledging the similarities between rehearsal and other forms of self-talk can help bridge our understanding of how children-especially children with atypical neurodevelopment-use self-talk to regulate their behavior across cognitive domains.