Learning to Pretend: Preschoolers' use of Meta-communication in Sociodramatic Play

Abstract

Children's ability to structure sociodramatic play may depend on their ability to communicate pretence transformations effectively. In order to investigate the relation of children's differential use of verbal meta-communication to play theme, player's age, and episode duration, the naturally occurring sociodramatic play of 30 preschoolers (ages 29 to 68 months) was observed in a university day care facility. We found that children's use of within-frame and out-of-frame meta-communication (Giffin, 1984) was unrelated to the duration of sociodramatic play. However, children's use of out-of-frame meta-communication was related to age: Older children used a greater percentage of out-of-frame meta-communication than younger children. Furthermore, although there was no main effect of theme, there was an interaction between age and theme. Older children used less within-frame meta-communication than younger children during adventure/fantastic episodes, but used an equivalent proportion during domestic/occupational episodes. The findings suggest that older children are more flexible in their use of meta-communication.