ERIC Number: EJ1079893
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-3920
EISSN: N/A
Young Children's Comprehension of Temporal Relations in Complex Sentences: The Influence of Memory on Performance
Blything, Liam P.; Davies, Robert; Cain, Kate
Child Development, v86 n6 p1922-1934 Nov-Dec 2015
The present study investigated 3- to 7-year-olds' (N = 91) comprehension of two-clause sentences containing the temporal connectives before or after. The youngest children used an order of mention strategy to interpret the relation between clauses: They were more accurate when the presentation order matched the chronological order of events: "He ate his lunch, before he played in the garden" (chronological) versus "Before he played in the garden, he ate his lunch" (reverse). Between 4 and 6 years, performance was influenced by a combination of factors that influenced processing load: connective type and presentation order. An independent measure of working memory was predictive of performance. The study concludes that the memory demands of some sentence structures limits young children's comprehension of sentences containing temporal connectives.
Descriptors: Young Children, Comprehension, Sentences, Correlation, Time, Short Term Memory, Predictor Variables, Sentence Structure
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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