Investigated young African American children's stories to determine how preschoolers portray themselves and what social processes accompany these narrative portrayals of self. Found that all subjects demonstrated remarkable objective understanding of self. Girls chose to talk about self in the context of past events, whereas boys chose to talk…

Examined children's social comparisons in conversational stories of past personal experiences as they related to development of concept of self. Found that comparisons of self with others increased with age. The 2-1/2-year olds used comparisons to convey similarities between self and others, whereas the 5-year-old subjects used social comparison…

Examined nine infants' pretend play with mothers to determine pretend play's impact on children's emerging understanding of emotions so necessary to concepts of self. Found that the combination of talk and enactment characteristic of pretend play may facilitate communication about emotions--particularly fear and anger--that may be considered…

Uses longitudinal data on language acquisition to examine children's language and sense of self and others. Referential analysis of children's discourse found that children do locate self and other in a spatio-temporal realm. Form-function analysis found that children's discourse about self was more varied in form and in semantic and pragmatic…

Argues that the capacity for consciousness of self and others arises from developing representational and perceptual activities, especially during play. Examines young children's development of symbolic play, from sensorimotor exploration to representational play through five stages involving gestures of recognition, self-pretend and pretend play,…

Examined the nature of infants' development of social knowledge and the role of caregivers' verbal responses to requests in learning about self and others. Found that, as indicated by changes in request-making behavior, children's conceptualization of the role of self in making requests changes with age; the nature of children's conceptualization…

Briefly reviews current knowledge about the nature of limits of intersubjectivity (ability to acquire and manage representations of self and other through social experience) in autistic children. Describes an observational study of verbal autistic children indicating the presence of intersubjectivity, but with little of the verbal social…

Representations of 40 3- to 6-year-olds' perceptions of Oedipal conflicts among family members were assessed through a doll-play task and parental diaries. Complementary information on children's understanding of family roles and age relativity was evaluated independently. Oedipal behaviors appeared to increase and then decrease during this age…

Describes the administration of Dialogues about Families, a set of 3 developmentally sensitive instruments designed to probe children's perceptions of their families and themselves through interactive dialogues, to several hundred 6 to 12 year olds. Suggests that the instruments be used to augment findings derived from parental reports and…