Preschool children's 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 particular task requirements and test procedures, was investigated in two studies. The theoretical concepts "principle of contrast" and "theory of mind" are closely related to the studies. A paraphrase task and a referential communication task were used. In the paraphrase task, children from 3 to 6 years of age acted as "messengers" and judged whether or not a paraphrase of a message was the same as what the child had said. The results in Study 1 indicated that children as young as 3 years of age recognized this kind of form/content distinction. Fewer children, in particular 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 decreased among children of all ages, but in particular among the youngest children. 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 tasks, which may reveal awareness of the form/content distinction among young children, and that it is possible to construct tasks which would enable young children to pay attention to this distinction. Aspects of awareness of the form/content distinction may start to develop early during the preschool period, rather than appearing around the school start. However, the question of why only some children, and not the majority of them, develop this distinction at a very young age is unsettled, as well as the consequences of this early development later on at school.