1. The development of communicative perspective-taking during the preschool years Susan Graham Dept. of Psychology University of Calgary

2. When learning language…. Children must acquire: –Sounds –Words –Grammar And –How language is used to communicate

3. Our research focus Communicative perspective-taking how children recognize and adapt their communications based on another’s perspective

4. Children’s consideration of communicative partners’ perspective Nayer & Graham, 2006

5. Children’s consideration of communicative partners’ perspective Conditions: Parent present versus Parent Absent Question: Do children modify their requests when the parent does not know which toy is the “magic toy”?

6. Children’s consideration of communicative partners’ perspective Nayer & Graham, 2006 Movie to go here

7. Children’s consideration of communicative partners’ perspective Nayer & Graham, 2006 3-year-olds offered more information to parents when parent was absent when “magic toy” was identified versus when parent was present. Mostly gestures at this stage.

8. A more demanding task….. How well do children use another’s perspective to guide their production of messages? Nilsen & Graham,under review

9. Making requests “Ask Hayli to pick up this one”

10. Conditions Common Ground Condition Privileged Ground Condition Baseline Condition

11. Production task

12. Overall Conclusions Developmental emergence of communicative perspective-taking skills: 3-year-olds will provide more information to an unknowledgeable partner vs. a knowledgeable partner Young 5-year-olds will adjust their requests to fit a listener’s perspective.

13. Collaborators: Samantha Nayer Liz Nilsen, University of Waterloo Members of the Language and Cognitive Development Lab Thank you