抄録
The present study was designed to clarify the development of listener-oriented communication skills in children, specifically how children control and communicate redundant (unnecessary) information in referential communication tasks. Second, fourth and sixthgrade elementary school children communicated individually to both a seen and an unseen listener. Level of redundancy was determined using 2 criteria, i. e. whether information was verifiable or not, and whether it was available for discrimination. According to these criteria3levels were used for analysis: (1) verifiable-available (low redundancy),(2) verifiable-unavailable,(3) unverifiable-unavailable (high redundancy). The main findings for each school grade were as follows: (1) Sixth graders could control for unavailable information (level 2 and 3), but they tended to communicate low redundant verifiableavailable information.(2) Second graders did not change their message to the listener but the level of redundancy did change with the type of listener (seen/unseen).(3) Fourth graders could partially control high redundant unverifiable-unavailable information, but they tended to communicate verifiable information (level 1 and 2).
