It has been pointed out that there is a change in communicative behaviors in latter infancy (9-10 months old). This is the biginning of the intentional communication and is called the illocutionary stage by Bates et al. They also found two communicative acts in this stage-proto-declarative and proto-imperative acts. In this paper the formation of the proto-imperative actis discussed. I made a pseudo-longitudinal observation of six 7 to 13 months old infants using the interference technique, which consists of forcing the infant into frustration and consequently eliciting request behaviors. The developmental process of the request behaviors of infants is described based on this observation. Firstly, it turns out that the development of the request behaviors proceeds in the following order : (1) desire or frustration expression (crying, fussing, tensional arm movement, etc.) ; (2) demand practice (direct behaviors to the object, reaching, etc.) ; (3) instrumental demand practice (direct behaviors to the object trying to use the adult's hand as an instrument) ; (4)practical request communmication (eye contact or uttering call sounds to the adult co-occurred with direct behaviours) ; (5) conventional request communication (conventional gesture, showing, giving, pointing, etc.) ; (6) request communication by speech. The biginning of the stage (4) (-10 months old) has a special character of a steplike change. The behaviors of the stage (1) and the stage (3) has similar properties as the abnormal behaviors of autistic children. Secondly, I investigate the relation between the formation of the request communication and that of other areas of abilities. The same behavioral patterns of communicative skills (direct behaviors to the object + eye contact and giving) first appear as proto-declarative acts, then as proto-imperative acts. So the skills for the request communication are formed in the playful interaction with adults, then used for the request. The hypothesis that the stage 5 means-end relation has close connection with the intentional communication is tested. Any consistent correspondence is not observed. The six infants can be divided into two types, object-oriented type and person-oriented type, according to the order of the appearence of the stage 5 means-end performance and that of the request communication.

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There are two different views of the developmet of pre-school children's play. Piaget has suggested that children tend to seek an affinity between "signifiant" and "signifie" in their play. For that reason, Piaget took the view that the Stage I symbolic play should disappear after 4 years of age. On the other hand, Vygotsky has suggested that "signifiant" is separated from "signifie" in the developmental process. He took the view that the symbolic play of pre-school children is one of the necessary conditions for the development of the ability to understand written words. In Vygotsky's theory, the essence of symbolism in play exists in the use of gesture to give meaning to objects.Elikonin has suggested the difference between Piaget and Vygotsky is derived from their understanding of gesture. Extending Vygotsky's theory, Elikonin has introduced the unit "role" to analyse symbolic play. This study investigated the consistency of the development of children's symbolic play. Before 4 years of age, children's play is already influenced by society. If play is observed and analysed only within the limits of the relation between "signifiant" and "signifie, " nodifference could be found between the play of under-4's and over-4 years old children. This set of experiments aims to show the difference between the play of 2 groups of children, under and over 4 years of age. The purpose of Experiment I was to make clear the short-comings of Piaget's categorization. Nine preschool children aged three, and nine aged five years were selected as subjects. Each child was observed when playing alone with various types of toys, most of which were symbolic toys. As expected, no difference, either qualitative or quantitative, could be discerned between the two groups. However, an analysis of the symbolic play data most typical for each age group suggested the following hypothesis concerning the developmental difference between each age group's play : the older group's play situation would be decided according to a theme while the younger group's play would be decided according to play materials. This hypothesis was examined in Experiment II, Before playing, each child was asked what kind of theme he wanted to use in his play, and then made to choose the play materials suited to the theme. These new categories added to Experiment II were chosen to examine whether each child would be able to represent the content of his play prior to actual play. The results of this experiment made clear the developmental differences between each age group's play. In Experiment III, the validity of using the unit "role" to analyse play was examined. This study's conclusions are as follows. Younger children can already play symbolically but they connot represent their play prior to actually engaging in it. Their play behavior is decided by play materials. On the other hand, older children decide on a theme before they play. In their play, play materials are subjected to the play theme.

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