Reticent primary grade children and their more talkative peers: Verbal, nonverbal, and self-concept characteristics.

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This report describes research with 128 kindergarten children, the purpose of which was to assess the stability of verbal behavior and the relationship of verbal and nonverbal abilities and self-concept to talkativeness in the classroom. The children were divided into verbal and quiet groups on the basis of teacher rankings in the fall of kindergarten. Rankings in the spring term indicated that about one third of the quiet children became more verbal, thus making for a subdivision of the quiet children into the reticent group, who remained quiet, and the mixed group, who became more talkative. This distinction proved important because reticent children obtained lower parental ratings of communication skills at home and lower scores on a variety of language tests administered in Grade 1 than did verbal children; the mixed group obtained intermediate scores. No differences were observed among reticent, mixed, and verbal children on a general measure of self-concept. These findings are discussed in light of the literatures on shyness and classroom discourse.