Elementary school students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades were asked to do three different tasks in an attempt to determine how frequently children at these various ages use figurative language. Results for a Composition Task showed that children tend to produce a greater number of frozen than novel figures, and that the absolute level of such usage decreased over the three grades. Results for a Multiple Uses Task revealed that children tended to produce more frozen than novel figures and that both types of figures showed a marked increase over grade. Results for a Comparison Task also indicated that the use of figurative language increased over grade level and that under the conditions of this task, children used more novel than frozen figures. All in all, present results were taken to mean that the Composition Task is not a particularly good one for assessing developmental trends in figurative language usage. In addition, these results show that children as early as the third grade are able to use figurative language effectively, and that a Comparison Task represents one good way in which to encourage children to use novel figurative language. (Author/CS)