Talking to Ourselves to Engage Control? Testing Developmental Relations Between Self-directed Speech, Cognitive Control and Talkativeness

Is self-directed speech critical to cognitive processes supporting complex, goal-directed behavior? If so, how? An influential developmental hypothesis is that children talk to themselves to support cognitive control processes, and that with age this speech becomes increasingly covert and strategic. However, while many studies suggest language supports cognitive control, evidence that self-directed speech gradually internalizes has been mixed. Moreover, extraneous factors that could co-vary with self-directed speech, age, and cognitive control, such as talkativeness, have not been systematically tested. In this cross-sectional study of 86 5to 7-year-old children we measured overt, partially covert, inner, and strategic speech on four cognitive tasks, along with task performance and child talkativeness. We did not find consistent evidence that self-directed speech changes with age; however, we did find consistent associations between self-directed speech and talkativeness. Partially covert and strategic speech predicted performance on one task, and inner speech was implicated on another. Self-directed speech tended to correlate across tasks, and these correlations held controlling for talkativeness. Taken together, these findings suggest 5to 7-year-old children may use different forms of self-directed speech to support cognitive control, and that the form this speech takes depends in part on factors beyond age, such as the cognitive demands of a task and child characteristics like talkativeness.