Private Speech, Executive Functioning, and the Development of Verbal Self-Regulation

This text will be an essential volume for those interested in the interface between language, cognition, and behavior.

Adam Winsler (Edited by), Charles Fernyhough (Edited by), Ignacio Montero (Edited by)

9780521866071, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 April 2009

272 pages, 9 b/w illus. 19 tables
27.9 x 22.1 x 2.3 cm, 1 kg

“This volume is a landmark in our contemporary research of private speech. The authors rely upon the seminal focus of Lev Vygotsky on the internalization of speech and combine it with our contemporary discourse about executive functions in human cognitive processes. By covering all the important fields of research currently present in the investigation of private speech – from neuroscience to creativity – the volume charts out new horizons for explaining how the internalized speaking operates within the developing mind over the whole of the human life course. The international cast of authors sets up a creative framework for new perspectives that should innovate the field towards a new focus of study on intra-psychological semiotic processes, and would transcend the currently fashionable large-samples based statistically flavored research practices in the direction of a new look at the legacies of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Gustav Shpet, and Charles Sanders Peirce.”
—Jaan Valsiner, Editor, Culture & Psychology and Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science

Seventy-five years after Vygotsky's death, scholarship exploring developmental relations between language and thought continues to be strong. This edited volume compiles contributions from international leaders in the field on the roles of language and private speech (self-talk) in the development of self-regulation and executive functioning in children and adults. New theoretical insights, empirical research, and potential clinical and educational applications of scholarship on private speech are presented. Relevant for undergraduate and graduate students and scholars of psychology, education, linguistics, and cognitive science, this text will be an essential volume for those interested in the interface between language, cognition, and behaviour, and the development of regulatory or cognitive control over behaviour.

Preface Laura Berk
Introduction/Overview Adam Winsler, Charles Fernyhough and Ignacio Montero
Part I. Overview, Theoretical, and Biological Foundations: 1. Still talking to ourselves after all these years: a review of current research on private speech Adam Winsler
2. Dialogic thinking Charles Fernyhough
3. The executive functions of language in preschool children Ulrich Müller, Sophie Jaques, Karin Brocki and Philip David Zelazo
4. The neuropsychology of covert and overt speech: implications for the study of private speech in children and adults Simon Jones
Part II. Language, Communication, Social Cognition and Awareness: 5. Talking and thinking: the role of speech in social understanding Jeremy Carpendale, Charles Lewis, Noah Susswein and Joanna Lunn
6. Private speech and theory of mind: evidence for developing functional relations Charles Fernyhough and Elizabeth Meins
7. Development of communicative competence through private and inner speech Peter Feigenbaum
8. Private speech in the framework of referential communication Conchi San Martín Martinez, Humbert Boada and Maria Forns Santacana
9. Preschool children's awareness and theory of speech Louis Manfra
10. Younger children's knowledge about overt and covert private speech John Flavell and Adrian A. Wong
Part III. Symbols and Tools Throughout the Lifespan: 11. Private pointing and private speech: development of executive function Begoña Delgado, Juan Carolos Gómez and Encarnación Sarriá
12. Symbols as tools in the development of executive function Stephanie Carlson and Danielle M. Beck
13. On the persistence of private speech: empirical and theoretical considerations Robert M. Duncan and Donato Tartulli
14. Private speech beyond childhood: testing the developmental hypothesis José Sánchez-Medina, David Alarcón Rubio and Manuel de la Mata
Part IV. Motivational and Educational Applications: 15. Private speech and motivation: the role of language in a sociocultural account of motivational processes David J. Atencio and Ignacio Montero
16. Creativity and private speech in young children C. Stephen White and Martha Daugherty
17. Early childhood teacher's awareness, beliefs, and practices toward children's private speech Carla Deniz
Afterword James Wertsch.

Subject Areas: Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Child & developmental psychology [JMC], Linguistics [CF]