Abstract

The purpose of this study was to look into how the children's self-regulation was changed as their age increased and whether the overt-speech was effective in self-regulation, and to know how task-difficulty influence the self-regulation. In this study, the subject were 24,4 years old, 24, 6 years old, and 24, 8 years old children. In this task, each subject hits the motor plate with a toy hammer while seeing the light of the visual stimulation plate, all subjects are supposed to hit 10 times in each task, whick makes total 30 times hittings, and the times of error in hitting were measured. Task difficulty was varied in terms of colors and number of light. That is, when the light was yellow, the subject should hit 3 times, red light was on twice, white was one, and blue was not hitting. And the easiest task was that a bulb lighted, the easier task was that two bulbs lighted simultaniously. and the most difficult task was that three bulbs lighted simultaniously. In verbal condition, subject had to verbalize the number of hitting when he hitted the mother plate. The result showed that children's age grew, their ability of self-regulation was also increased. It was also known that the overt-speech for self-regulation was efficient only for the children who could possibly communicate to the age of 7-8 years. When the task was difficult for children, self-regulation became also difficult, however the overt-speech played an important role in self-regulation, when a task was difficult.