Il linguaggio dei bambini in contesti di gioco solitario e sociale.

Language development during social and solitary play. The aim of the present study was to analyse the speech language during social and solitary play at the kindergarten. Children aged between 18 to 36 months participated in the study. Each child was observed during solitary and social play for 10 minutes and the verbal production was transcribed by two independent observers. Moreover each child was observed according to the "Play Observation Scale" (Rubin, Maioni, Hornung, 1976) and the "Primo vocabolario del bambino" (Caselli, Casadio, 1995) was administered to the parents. Data analysis showed different use of language according to social/solitary play. Moreover data analysis showed differences in the children's verbal production according to the age and the social ability. The role of social competence and language development were discussed.