Metacommunication in young children's pretend play: An instrument development study

With the intent of furthering the measurement of specific aspects of the pretend play of young children, a coding system of 24 metacommunicative statements, divided into five subscales (Communicating the Play Frame, Defining the Scenario, Accepting the Definition, Negotiating the Definition, and Breaking the Play Frame) was proposed, tested, and revised. Thirty-three 3 to 5-year-olds were observed on two separate occasions in play with a gender and age matched classmate. Measures of conceptual perspective taking and IQ (PPVT-R) were also administered. The results indicated that the subscales are moderately consistent, and show a strong pattern of intercorrelations within the subscales. Further, correlations indicated which codes and subscales require additional attention and refinement. The frequency of metacommunication was not stable across the two play observations, indicating that children's use of metacommunication may be in response to the play partner. No multivariate gender effect was found in frequency of metacommunication. Both age and perspective taking correlated moderately and negatively with subscale scores, when SES was partialled out. These preliminary findings suggest that exhibition of metacommunicative behaviors may decrease with cognitive development, and with the ability to recognize others' perspective. With this additional perspective may come recognition of the lessening need for overt definition of the play scenario.