The influence of talking on showing and telling: Adult-child talk and children's verbal and nonverbal event recall

Although adult-child discussion during an event has been shown to influence children's verbal recall, limited research has investigated its influence on nonverbal recall, particularly in the early school years. The current experiment addressed this gap. Sixty-five 5- to 6-year old children participated in a staged, novel event and were interviewed about it 2 weeks later. The 4 experimental conditions varied as to whether the children experienced empty or elaborative adult-child talk during the event and whether, during the memory interview, verbal recall preceded re-enactment (verbal-first) or re-enactment preceded verbal recall (nonverbal-first). Replicating previous findings, elaborative talk increased the correct information in verbal recall. Moreover, elaborative talk increased the amount and accuracy of the information re-enacted and reduced the errors made. Interview order did not influence the results. The findings extend theory and research by demonstrating that by age 5 years, elaborative talk influences not only verbal but also nonverbal recall. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.