Private Speech among Children with Intellectual Disabilities

YE NIU^1*Yuko YOSHIMURA^1,2,3Manabu Yoshioka⁴Mitsuru Kikuchi^1,3,5Hiroaki Kobayashi^1,2,3

• ¹United Graduate School of Child Development (UGSCD), Suita, Japan
• ²College of Human and Social Sciences, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
• ³Research Center for Child Mental Development, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
• ⁴Affiliated School for Special Needs Education, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
• ⁵Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan

Research has reported that children use private speech as a tool for self-regulation and planning when facing task-solving challenges. Both typically developing children and children with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, have been found to use private speech in cognitive tasks, although there are differences in frequency and development mode between each group. However, there are no data on the private speech of children with intellectual disabilities. In this study, the private speech used by children with intellectual disabilities (n=20) was tested in a selective attention task. Seventy percent of the children used private speech during the task, and 60% used task-relevant private speech to assist in solving the task. Additionally, children with intellectual disabilities with strong autism spectrum disorder tendencies engaged in more private speech than those with milder autism spectrum disorder tendencies. The findings suggest that children with intellectual disabilities talk to themselves in task-solving conditions and that such speech is assistive in guiding their behaviors.