Re: [xmca] LSV on the preschool stage

[Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>]

Hi Peter,

Interesting! It contradicts this data, from Winsler & Naglieri (2003). Here, "Observed Covert PS" is what they call "partially covert speech," including whispering and mumbling. You'll see that only 15% of the  youngest kids, aged 5, were observed doing this, and self-reports of this kind of self-directed speech had barely started at that age.  Can we get a preprint of this study?

Martin

On Oct 16, 2010, at 12:57 PM, Peter Feigenbaum wrote:

> Hi, Martin.
> 
> Yes, I'm actually referring to a study of inner speech that Lou Manfra
> conducted that may not be published yet. He reported this to me in a
> personal (face-to-face) communication. He also related to me an anecdote
> about one young boy in that study who was very dismayed to discover (when
> asked by his mother if he could talk to himself inside his head) that he
> was unable to do so. He experienced this dismay repeatedly for two weeks
> when he talked to his mother about it each night. Then one day he ran to
> his mother bursting with excitement and blurted out ecstatically that he
> could now talk to himself inside his head! He then peered at her seriously,
> pursed his lips, scrunched up his face, and tensed up his whole head for
> several seconds. "See?" he told her. "I'm doing it right now!"
> 
> What strikes me most about this study is the closeness in age at which the
> subjects reported awareness of inner speech activity. It strongly suggests
> biological maturation is at work. Because the physical internalization of
> speech (in contrast to its psychological internalization) depends on the
> ability of the nervous system to inhibit the respiratory components of
> speech activity, and because the nervous system is still undergoing
> development in childhood, it should not be too surprising that inner speech
> arises at roughly the same age in all children. But it's particularly
> gratifying to have hard evidence that backs that up. What does serve as a
> caution, however, is Ivanova's discovery that the regular age-related
> pattern of inhibition that she observed in the children she studied in the
> 1990s was not so regular when this same study was conducted in the 1950s.
> Historical conditions could be playing an influential role here in the
> onset and timing of nervous system development.
> 
> Incidentally, there is some good, solid psychophysiological evidence
> related to inner speech in the Vocate book I mentioned. If your students
> want facts based on hard evidence (and why wouldn't they?), you might find
> some useful ones there. (Mike has a chapter in that book, too. Man, no rest
> for the weary!)
> 
> Peter
> 
> -----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu wrote: -----
> 
> 
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> From: Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> Date: 10/16/2010 11:07AM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] LSV on the preschool stage
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 
> Thanks for pointing out this line of work; very interesting. On my quick
> reading, though, Manfra was asking the children about self-directed speech
> ("private speech," out loud) rather than about their "inner speech." Here's
> a clipping:
> 
> "Thus, of the children who admitted they were talking and actually did use
> private speech (N = 30), 16 (53%) said they were talking to themselves.
> Five-year-olds had the highest percentage of stating the self as the
> interlocutor (75%) compared to the 4-year-olds (73%) and 3-year-olds
> (31%)."
> 
> This is from "Preschool children's awareness of private speech," Louis
> Manfra and Adam Winsler International Journal of Behavioral Development
> 2006; 30; 537
> 
> But perhaps you are referring to a different study? I would find it
> surprising, though, if 4 year olds were both using inner speech and also
> aware of this use.
> 
> Martin
> 
> 
> On Oct 15, 2010, at 12:49 PM, Peter Feigenbaum wrote:
> 
>> Martin--
>> 
>> I empathize with your struggle to both understand LSV's theory and to
>> teach it to others. Humbling is the right word.
>> 
>> Of the several worthy questions you raise, I can add some useful
>> information to only one of them: the issue about speech going inner
> twice.
>> 
>> A recent study by Lou Manfra (now at Florida International University,
> but
>> formerly a student in Adam Winsler's private speech lab at George Mason
>> University) revealed some surprising information about the development of
>> inner speech--it occurs much earlier than we thought. He worked with 30
>> preschoolers and their mothers to find out exactly when the children
>> became aware that they could talk inside their heads, and lo, and behold,
>> the age was almost uniformly 4 years and two months!  The timing of this
>> phenomenon reminded me of the study conducted by Ivanova in 2000 that
>> examined the development of children's control of voluntary movements
>> (Ivanova, E.F. The development of voluntary behavior in preschoolers:
>> Repetition of Z.V. Manuiolenko's experiments. Journal of Russian & East
>> European Psychology, Vol 38(2), Mar-Apr 2000, pp. 6-21). She asked 80
>> children (aged 3-7 years) to stand still for as long as they could, and
>> recorded how long they could hold a frozen pose. Results showed that time
>> in poses increased with age. Voluntary control over movements was
>> undeveloped in 3-4 year-olds, first began to show up in 4-5 year-olds,
> and
>> became stable and automatic in 6-7 year-olds. Although Ivanova was
>> particularly interested in showing that the children's ability to hold a
>> pose for a longer time was negatively influenced by distraction and
>> positively influenced by the verbal suggestion that they "pretend to be a
>> statue", I think the important lesson for the current discussion is that,
>> neurologically, inhibitory control washes over children in temporal
> waves.
>> The fact that children become aware of inner speech (almost universally)
>> at 4 years and two months of age fits right in with the fact that the
>> first signs of voluntary control over behavior appear in 4-5 year-olds.
>> Thus, I tentatively conclude from these data that the **physical**
>> development of inner speech is tied to neurological development.
>> 
>> Furthermore, there is a neurological pathway that connects the vocal
>> chords to the inner ear, and this pathway is present early in life
>> (although I can't remember where I learned this, unfortunately). What
> that
>> means is that, when we speak aloud, we not only can hear our own voice
>> coming back to us through our ears, but also through an **internal**
>> (intracranial) channel that shunts the signal right to the inner ear.
>> Thus, the picture that emerges is the following: The physical development
>> of inner speech is the product of nervous system inhibition in which the
>> social speech activity of producing plosions of air that are passed over
>> the vocal chords is repressed, leaving the internal connection between
>> vocal chords and inner ear untouched. Consequently, we can *think* words
>> and *hear* them without any of the process being audible.
>> 
>> As for the issue of the **functional** internalization (or
>> interiorization, involution, intravolution) of personal speech, LSV
> claims
>> that this occurs between ages 7-8, and is part of a developmental
>> transition from private speech to inner speech. This transition depends
>> entirely on the completion of the psychological process of abbreviation
> of
>> private speech. While the timing of this functional internalization has
>> not been confirmed and is by no means certain, from the scant evidence we
>> have, it seems to occur a very long time after inner speech has come into
>> existence--which makes me wonder just what children are saying to
>> themselves in inner speech during this period!
>> 
>> For more precise information on the physical basis of inner speech, you
>> might want to check out the following book: Intrapersonal Communication:
>> Different Voices, Different Minds, by Donna Vocate (1994, Lawrence
>> Erlbaum).
>> 
>> I hope this response is helpful.
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> Peter
>> 
>> Peter Feigenbaum, Ph.D.
>> Associate Director of Institutional Research
>> Fordham University
>> Thebaud Hall-202
>> Bronx, NY 10458
>> 
>> Phone: (718) 817-2243
>> Fax: (718) 817-3203
>> e-mail: pfeigenbaum@fordham.edu
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
>> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>> 10/14/2010 04:42 PM
>> Please respond to
>> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> 
>> 
>> To
>> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> cc
>> 
>> Subject
>> Re: [xmca] LSV on the preschool stage
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On the issue of speech becoming 'inner physiologically,' here are the
>> results of an hour's Googling.
>> 
>> The principal brain region involved in speech production is Broca’s area.
>> The principal brain region involved in word recognition is Wernicke’s
>> area. Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas are connected by a bundle of nerve
>> fibres: the arcuate fasciculus. Lesion studies confirm that it is
> involved
>> with language. It is much larger in adult humans than in chimps or
>> monkeys. MRI studies of children from 4 to 17 have found increase the
>> white matter of this link with age, and only in the left hemisphere.
>> 
>> Rilling, J. K., Glasser, M. F., Preuss, T. M., Ma, X., Zhao, T., Hu, X.,
>> et al. (2008). The evolution of the arcuate fasciculus revealed with
>> comparative DTI. Nature Neuroscience, 11(4), 426-8.
>> 
>> Paus, T., Zijdenbos, A., Worsley, K., Collins, D. L., Blumenthal, J.,
>> Giedd, J. N., et al. (1999). Structural maturation of neural pathways in
>> children and adolescents: in vivo study. Science, 283(5409),
>> 1908-11._______________________________________________
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> 
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca_______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca

_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca