The maintenance of self-imposed delay of gratification by preschool children was briefly examined in two studies. One study investigated the effects of overt verbalization on the delay behavior of 75 preschool children. Children who periodically spoke of the delayed reward during the delay task, regardless of whether they spoke positively or negatively, waited less than subjects who were not instructed to make any particular statement during delay. Children who uttered a positive statement about waiting delayed longer than non-instructed subjects, while children who spoke negatively of waiting did not differ in delay from non-instructed subjects. A related study, involving 98 preschoolers, examined the influence of two factors--the content of overt self-verbalization (rewards or waiting) and freedom of choice (statement selected by child, statement assigned to child by experimenter, statement periodically heard by passive child)--on delay maintenance. The influence of specific statements was affected by the level of involvement allowed the child in the selection and utterance of the statements. (Author/SE)