Adaptors and Private Speech from the Developmental Perspective

Abstract The study reported in this article was based on the hypothesis that adaptors are important in the speech production process of pre-schoolers who use them extensively to accompany their speech and, to an extent, for primary school students, but they are almost never used by high school students. The experiment revealed the dominance of adaptors in the retelling of kindergarten students and primary school students, and the dominance of gestures in the retelling of high school students. Of particular interest is the shift from strong adaptors to slight adaptors in the retelling of primary school students, which is consistent with Lev Vygotsky’s inner speech theory. Additionally, the increase in gestures in the retellings of high school students compared to kindergarten students and primary school students correlates with J. Piaget’s views on communication. These findings provide a new perspective on the theory of private speech and its relationship to multimodal communication.