The role of language ability in young children's cooperation during play and collaborative interactions

Language and metacommunication are assumed to be important for accomplishing a high level of cooperation in social play. Research to date, however, does not address the relationship of language ability and metacommunication to the complexity of cooperation. This study investigated this relationship by observing 24 four- and five-year-old children's non-verbal and verbal cooperation during free play and a collaboration task in kindergarten. The results showed that the role of language ability and metacommunication depends on the context of behaviour. In free play but not in the task, high language ability was related to more complex non-verbal cooperation. There were no differences in verbal cooperation in free play or task in extending play to a coherent theme, but results for verbally taking up the child's own or the other's contribution were inconsistent. Differences in metacommunication were only found for the task.