Talking Hats — Who Am I Talking To?

A role-play game in which the child delivers the same message to very different listeners and discovers that words, tone, and manners change with the audience.

  1. Gather four or five “listeners”: a baby doll, a teddy who is the child’s best friend, a hat or scarf that turns you into a teacher, another that turns you into Grandma or Grandpa, and perhaps a crown for a queen or king.
  2. Give the child a simple message to deliver, for example “I want a biscuit,” “Come and look at my tower,” or “Move over, I can’t see.”
  3. Point to the first listener. The child says the message in the way that suits that listener. Do one yourself first if they are unsure: sing-song and simple for the baby (“Look, baby! Biscuit! Yum!”), casual for the friend (“Hey, want a biscuit?”), polite for the teacher (“Excuse me, may I have a biscuit, please?”).
  4. Move through the listeners with the same message. Then swap — the child wears the hats and you deliver a message, sometimes getting it comically wrong (baby talk to the queen).
  5. Talk briefly about what changed: “What did you do differently for the baby? For the teacher?”

Variation: play “Who was I talking to?” — say a sentence in one style (“Would you mind terribly passing the peas?”) and the child guesses which listener it was meant for.

Requirements

  • Space: A corner of a room or a sofa
  • Surface: Not applicable
  • Materials: A doll, a soft toy, and two or three hats, scarves, or other simple props to mark each listener
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; an older sibling can play listeners
  • Supervision: Full participation — the adult plays the listeners

Rationale & Objective

Changing how you speak according to who is listening — register or style shifting — is a central pragmatic skill and one of this subdomain’s key examples (“uses different language with a teacher vs. a peer”). Research shows it emerges early and is still being refined at five: Shatz & Gelman (1973) found that 4-year-olds already use shorter, simpler sentences when talking to 2-year-olds than to adults or peers, and Sachs & Devin (1976) found similar adjustments even when children talked to a doll standing in for a baby. Andersen’s (1990) role-play studies with puppets showed that children aged roughly 4–7 mark roles such as doctor, teacher, parent, and baby through pitch, vocabulary, and politeness, with the range of registers growing with age. Role play is therefore both the natural place where children practise registers and a research-tested way of drawing them out. Keeping the message constant while the listener changes makes the adjustment itself visible to the child. ASHA’s earlier milestone chart for 4–5 years included talking “in different ways, depending on the listener and place.”

Progress Indicators

  • Early: says the message the same way to everyone, or changes only voice pitch for the baby; needs a model for each listener
  • Developing: clearly simplifies and softens for the baby and adds “please” for the teacher; friend and grandparent versions sound alike
  • Proficient: produces three or more distinct styles, changing words as well as tone (“Hey” vs. “Excuse me”; a demand vs. “May I…”); can say what they changed
  • Advanced: spots and explains mismatches (“You can’t say ‘gimme’ to the queen!”); guesses the listener from the style; shows the same shifts in real life, e.g. explaining something more simply to a younger child

Safety Notes

  • Physical risk is minimal; keep dressing-up props free of long cords or anything tied around the neck
  • Present styles as different, not as good and bad — casual talk with friends and the family’s home language or dialect are right for their settings, not mistakes to be fixed
  • Avoid mocking accents, ages, or disabilities when playing characters; exaggerate politeness and silliness, not people
  • Some children are reluctant performers; let them direct you (“How should I say it to the baby?”) instead of acting themselves
  • If a 5-year-old shows no adjustment at all to very different listeners and also struggles with greetings, turn-taking, or eye contact, discuss it with a speech-language pathologist

Hints

  • Playfulness: the funniest rounds are the wrong ones — let the child order the queen about, then “fix” it; laughter shows they have noticed the rule
  • Sustain interest: add new listeners over the weeks (shopkeeper, doctor, a very shy new child, a dog) and new messages drawn from real situations at home
  • Common mistake: turning it into a manners drill where the polite version is the only right answer. The skill is flexibility — the casual version for a friend is just as correct
  • Limited space: no props needed — just announce the listener (“Now I’m the baby”) or draw faces on paper; works well in the car
  • Cross-domain: guessing how each listener feels about the message links to theory of mind; bilingual families can add “Which language does this listener understand?”
  • Progression: two contrasting listeners (baby and teacher) → four listeners → child explains the changes → guess-the-listener game → harder messages (saying no, disagreeing, asking for a turn)

Sources

  • Shatz, M. & Gelman, R. (1973), “The development of communication skills: Modifications in the speech of young children as a function of listener,” Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 38(5)
  • Sachs, J. & Devin, J. (1976), “Young children’s use of age-appropriate speech styles in social interaction and role-playing,” Journal of Child Language 3(1)
  • Andersen, E.S. (1990), Speaking with Style: The Sociolinguistic Skills of Children, Routledge
  • ASHA, How Does Your Child Hear and Talk? Four to Five Years (earlier milestone chart, since revised) — “Talks in different ways, depending on the listener and place”
  • Teaching Strategies GOLD Objective 10b — “Uses social rules of language”
  • Gilliam, J.E. & Miller, L. (2006), Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory (PLSI), PRO-ED