The effectiveness of short-term training on two communication tasks was assessed with seven and one-half olds. Twelve subjects were trained in trios for six sessions on tasks requiring complete description of a design for a listener to reproduce, and tasks requiring communication of critical information for a listener to discriminate the same design from a set. Roles of speaker, listener, and observer were alternated, followed by peer discussion. Compared to 12 control subjects, trained subjects at posttesting had significantly greater useful information and overall evaluation of messages, and showed a moderate transfer of skills. (Author)