This study compared mother-child interactions and investigated how child verbal abilities interact with age to influence maternal scaffolding (teaching) styles in a group of 60 mother-child dyads in which the children were aged 3, 4, and 5 years (20 dyads in each of the 3, 4, and 5 year age groups). The mother-child pairs were filmed completing a model grocery store task in which they searched for 3 specific items. The children's verbal IQ was also measured, and the mothers filled out a questionnaire on parent-child interactions. Results indicated that there was a decrease with age in the proportion of maternal statements related to task-specific materials, particularly between the ages of 3 and 4. Mothers of 4-year-old children used proportionately more metacognitive statements, while mothers of 3-year-old children used proportionately fewer such statements, than did mothers of the 5-year-old group. (MDM)