The primary goal was to specify the impact of scaffolding and overhearing on young children's use of the spatial terms "between" and "middle". Four- and five-year-old children described the location of a mouse hidden between two furniture items in a dollhouse with assistance from a parent. Children's use of "between" and "middle" increased significantly across trials, and in concert, parents' directive scaffolding involving "middle" decreased across trials. In the second study, three common scaffolding types (Between Directive, Middle Directive, non-directive) were compared with a no prompt condition by having children receive prompts from a doll and with overhearing conditions in which children overheard conversations between two adult experimenters containing "between" or 'middle". Children's use of "between" and "middle" was much more frequent following directive prompting than following non-directive prompting, no prompting, or overhearing. Moreover, children showed some evidence of using "between" and "middle" in response to non-directive prompting and overhearing. (Contains 1 footnote.)