Yadda, Yadda, Yadda

Well, I suppose this is good news:

Parents should not worry when their pre-schoolers talk to themselves; in fact, they should encourage it, says Adam Winsler, an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University. His recent study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly showed that 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud (either spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult) than when they are silent.

"Young children often talk to themselves as they go about their daily activities, and parents and teachers shouldn’t think of this as weird or bad," says Winsler. "On the contrary, they should listen to the private speech of kids. It's a fantastic window into the minds of children."

In the study, "'Should I let them talk?': Private speech and task performance among preschool children with and without behavior problems," 78 percent of the children performed either the same or better on the performance task when speaking to themselves than when they were silent.

All three of the Llama-ettes fall pretty squarely into the auto-Chatty Cathy column, although I am thinking in particular of the six year old, who, as God is my witness, has never stopped talking since the day she was born.

On the plus side, if this study is to be believed, it's good for 'em. On the minus, Orgle Manor tends to be an extremely noisy place.

Yips! to Dean.