Elementary school age children's comprehension of specific idiomatic expressions

This study explored the ability of elementary school age children to comprehend six idiomatic expressions. Eighty linguistically normal children, 20 from each of four different grade levels (kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade) participated as subjects. All of the children completed a task designed to probe comprehension of specific idioms. A short story was presented, after which the subjects were required to identify events in the story, which were described using idiomatic phrases. When examined as a group, comprehension of the idioms studied improved with increasing age. However, when examined individually, performance was found to be highly variable from idiom to idiom. These results are discussed with regard to clinical implications in the assessment and management of language-disordered children.     

Mental imagery and idiom comprehension: a comparison of school-age children and adults.

Previous research has shown that transparent idioms (e.g., paddle your own canoe) are generally easier for children to interpret than opaque idioms (e.g., paint the town red), results that support the metasemantic hypothesis of figurative understanding (M. A. Nippold, 1998). This is the view that beyond exposure to idioms and attention to the linguistic context, the learner analyzes the expressions internally to infer meaning, a process that is easier to execute when the literal and nonliteral meanings overlap. The present study was designed to investigate mental imagery in relation to the discrepancy in difficulty between transparent and opaque expressions. Twenty familiar idioms, half transparent and half opaque, were presented to 40 school-age children (mean age = 12;3 [years;months]) and 40 adults (mean age = 27;0) who were asked to describe in writing their own mental images for each expression. The participants were also given a written multiple-choice task to measure their comprehension of the idioms. The results indicated that mental imagery for idioms undergoes a developmental process and is associated with comprehension. Although school-age children were able to report relevant mental images for idioms, their images were less sophisticated than those of adults and were more likely to be concrete and to reflect only a partial understanding of the expressions. In contrast, the images reported by adults were more likely to be figurative. The findings suggest that the mental images people report for idioms may serve as a barometer of their depth of understanding of the expressions.     

Comparison of idiom comprehension of normal children and children with mental retardation

This study compared the comprehension of 20 idioms of normal children with children exhibiting mild mental retardation. Sixty-six children comprised three groups: normal 9-year-olds, 9-year-old children with mild mental retardation, and younger normal children matched with the mentally retarded children by receptive vocabulary age. The assessment included both literal and idiomatic contexts with accompanying picture stimuli. The three groups demonstrated high accuracy with the literal contexts. On the idiomatic contexts, the normal children comprehended significantly more idioms than the children with mental retardation, and the mentally retarded children performed significantly better than the younger normal children.     

Lexicalization of idioms in urban fifth graders: a reaction time study

Idioms are an important aspect of language that comprises a sizeable portion of our vocabulary. However, lexical access research has largely been limited to understanding how literal words are accessed and processed in the mental lexicon. Adult data show that idioms are quickly accessed from the lexicon and are likely processed as long words [J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 18 (1979) 523]. The purpose of this study was to examine lexicalization of idioms in a group of school-aged children. Using a phrase classification design, this research tested the Lexical Representation Hypothesis [J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 18 (1979) 523] in 19 urban fifth graders (5 boys, 14 girls; M age=10.16 years). On a computer, the students classified 54 phrases, including 24 idioms (high, moderate, and low familiarity [J. Speech Hear. Res. 36 (1993) 728]), 24 grammatical control word strings and 6 unrelated foils as either idioms or nonidioms. The idioms were identified with 62% accuracy. Unexpectedly, the boys tended to show higher rates of accuracy than the girls. Response latencies were shorter on the idioms compared to the controls and high familiarity idioms were processed faster than moderate and low familiarity idioms. These findings provide developmental data for lexicalization of idioms and the relationship between lexicalization and familiarity. At the cocnlusion of this articel, the reader will be able to: (1). discuss the various theories of idiom access and processing, (2). discuss how lexical access relates to idiom knowledge in school-aged children, and (3). consider the association between lexical access and familiarity relative to idiom comprehension in school-aged children.     

Judgments of idiom familiarity and transparency: a comparison of children and adolescents.

Idioms (e.g., go by the book, keep a straight face) are figurative expressions that frequently occur in the English language. Given the pervasiveness of these expressions, it is important that young people can understand their meanings. Developmental studies have shown that idioms that are higher in familiarity and transparency (e.g., blow off some steam) are generally easier for children and adolescents to understand than those that are less familiar and more opaque (e.g., pull up one's socks). In those studies, judgments of idiom familiarity and transparency were based on the perceptions of individuals who were older than the study participants. In the present study, 11-year-old children (n = 50) and 16-year-old adolescents (n = 50) were asked to judge the familiarity and transparency of a set of 20 idioms. Their comprehension of the same expressions was also examined. The results indicated that the children were less familiar with the idioms and had greater difficulty comprehending them than did the adolescents. However, the children's transparency judgments did not differ from those of the adolescents. For the children, the easiest idioms were also more familiar and transparent than the most difficult expressions. For the adolescents, the easiest idioms were more transparent than the most difficult ones, but the two types did not differ in familiarity. Suggestions are offered for conducting future studies of the development of idiom understanding in youth.     

Comprehension of idioms in adolescents with language-based learning disabilities compared to their typically developing peers

Adolescents with language-based learning disabilities (LBLD) often interpret idioms literally. When idioms are provided in an enriched context, comprehension is compromised further because of the LBLD student's inability to assign multiple meanings to words, assemble and integrate information, and go beyond a local referent to derive a global, coherent meaning. This study tested the effects of context and familiarity on comprehension of 24 idioms in 22 adolescents with LBLD. The students completed the Idiom Comprehension Test (ICT) [Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 30 (1999) 141; LSHSS 34 (2003) 69] in one of two conditions: in a story or during a verification task. Within each condition were three familiarity levels: high, moderate, and low. The LBLD adolescents' data were then compared to previously collected data from 21 age-, gender-, and reading ability-matched typically developing (TD) peers. The relations between reading and language literacy and idiom comprehension were also examined in the LBLD adolescents. Results showed that: (a) the LBLD adolescents generally performed poorly relative to their TD counterparts; however, the groups performed comparably on the high and moderate familiarity idioms in the verification condition; (b) the LBLD adolescents performed significantly better in the verification condition than in the story condition; and (c) reading ability was associated with comprehension of the low familiarity idioms in the story condition only. Findings are discussed relative to implications for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and educators working with adolescents with LBLD. LEARNING OUTCOMES: As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to (1) describe the importance of metalinguistic maturity for comprehension of idioms and other figures of speech; (2) understand the roles of context and familiarity when assessing idiom comprehension in adolescents with LBLD; and (3) critically evaluate assessments of idiom comprehension and determine their appropriateness for use with adolescents with LBLD.     

Factors supporting idiom comprehension in children with communication disorders.

The current investigation explored understanding of idioms in context in 93 children with communication disorders and 39 age-matched peers. The clinical group was subdivided by (a) the presence of autistic features and (b) the presence of language impairment. Idiom definitions were gathered in isolation and in context. Related skills such as semantics and theory of mind were also measured. All children benefited significantly from context. However, 2 groups with language impairments (1 with and 1 without autistic features) did not benefit from context as much as the controls or a group of children with autistic features without additional language difficulties. Regression analyses found that age, memory for story context, and language abilities were significant predictors of idioms in context performance. These findings are discussed in relation to theories of idiom acquisition and contextual processing in autism.     

Language skills of children and adolescents with Down syndrome: I. Comprehension.

This study investigates the development of vocabulary and syntax comprehension skills cross-sectionally in 48 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (Trisomy 21), aged 5-20 years, in comparison to 48 control children aged 2-6 years matched statistically for nonverbal mental age and mother's years of education. Age-equivalent scores on vocabulary (PPVT-R) and syntax (TACL-R) comprehension tests differed in the Down syndrome group but not the control group; vocabulary comprehension was relatively more advanced than syntax. Age-equivalent scores on nonverbal cognitive subtests of pattern analysis and short-term memory for bead arrangements (Stanford-Binet, 4th ed.) also differed for the Down syndrome group but not the control group, indicating an unusual pattern of nonverbal cognitive function in the Down syndrome group. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that chronological age and mean mental age, collectively, accounted for 78% of the variability in vocabulary comprehension and 80% of the variability in syntax comprehension in the Down syndrome group, with total passes on a hearing screening accounting for an additional 4% in each case. Implications for research are discussed.     

Semantic analyzability in children's understanding of idioms

This study investigated the role of semantic analyzability in children's understanding of idioms. Kindergartners and first, third, and fourth graders listened to idiomatic expressions either alone or at the end of short story contexts. Their task was to explain verbally the intended meanings of these phrases and then to choose their correct idiomatic interpretations. The idioms presented to the children differed in their degree of analyzability. Some idioms were highly analyzable or decomposable, with the meanings of their parts contributing independently to their overall figurative meanings. Other idioms were nondecomposable because it was difficult to see any relation between a phrase's individual components and the idiom's figurative meaning. The results showed that younger children (kindergartners and first graders) understood decomposable idioms better than they did nondecomposable phrases. Older children (third and fourth graders) understood both kinds of idioms equally well in supporting contexts, but were better at interpreting decomposable idioms than they were at understanding nondecomposable idioms without contextual information. These findings demonstrate that young children better understand idiomatic phrases whose individual parts independently contribute to their overall figurative meanings.     

Specific-language-impaired children's quick incidental learning of words: the effect of a pause.

It was hypothesized that the initial word comprehension of specific-language-impaired children would be enhanced by the insertion of a short pause just before a sentence-final novel word. Three groups of children served as subjects: twenty 5-year-old, specific-language-impaired (SLI) children, and two comparison groups of normally developing children, 20 matched for mean length of utterance (MLU) and 32 matched for chronological age (CA). The children were randomly assigned to two conditions for viewing video programs. The programs were animated stories that featured five novel object words and five novel attribute words, presented in a voice-over narration. The experimental version introduced a pause before the targeted words; the control version was identical except for normal prosody instead of a pause. Counter to the predictions, there was no effect for condition. Insertion of a pause did not improve the SLI children's initial comprehension of novel words. There were group main effects, with the CA matches better than either of the other two groups and no differences between the SLI children and the MLU-matched children.     

听觉经验及康复时间对听障儿童语言发展的影响

目的：本研究探讨学语初期听障儿童的听觉年龄与接受听觉口语法治疗的时间对语言发展的影响。方法选取台湾雅文儿童听语文教基金会听障个案18名,听觉年龄为8～16个月,以华语婴幼儿沟通发展量表婴儿版测验其语言能力,与相同听觉年龄的健听儿童常模成绩进行比较,预测分析听觉年龄和听觉口语法治疗时间对语言测验成绩的影响。结果听障儿童词汇理解与相同听觉年龄的健听儿童没有差异（P〉0.05）,但词汇表达显著落后于相同听觉年龄健听儿童。听障儿童早期及晚期手势沟通能力比相同听觉年龄健听儿童表现优异。此外,听障儿童的听觉年龄及康复时间亦能有效预测其词汇理解及晚期手势沟通的表现。结论学语初期听障儿童接受与健听儿童相同时间的听觉和语言刺激,其词汇理解发展速度与健听儿童无差异。听障儿童早期及晚期手势沟通能力皆优于健听儿童,且词汇理解和晚期手势沟通的表现随听觉口语法治疗时间的增加而上升,表明听觉口语法治疗在听障儿童学语初期的效果首先反映在词汇理解和晚期沟通手势上。     

腭裂婴幼儿术前早期语言发育的初步研究

目的初步观察8～15个月龄腭裂婴幼儿术前的早期语言发育。方法对北京大学口腔医学院2006年9月～2007年1月就诊的符合条件的40名腭裂术前唇腭裂／腭裂患儿的养护人进行问卷调查。用两样本成组t检验与正常儿童进行比较。结果唇腭裂患儿语言理解和语言得分均值都低于正常儿童，差异没有统计学意义，且高于正常儿童均值的负两个标准差；在语言表达方面，14和15个月龄患儿明显低于正常儿童，两组之间差异有统计学意义，并低于正常儿童均值的负两个标准差。结论8～15个月龄唇腭裂婴幼儿腭裂术前语言理解和语言能力的发育不足，14和15个月龄患儿的语言表达迟缓，主要是能说的词汇量少，提示应该早期进行腭裂手术，为唇腭裂提供更好的发音条件，间接促进语言的发育。     

The relation of chronological age of normal children in kindergarten and grade 1 to their performance on the Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language

For 55 normal-hearing and regularly educated children (Kindergarten and Grade 1) aged 62-81 months, the relationship was determined between chronological age and performance on the test for Auditory Comprehension of Language (TACL). Performance on the TACL related poorly to age (Spearman Rank Correlation coefficient: .35, p less than .02). The implication is that the TACL may not be sensitive to the normal development of auditory comprehension of language within the sharply limited age range examined. The data presented from these 55 entirely normal children may be used as additional norms of TACL for that age range.     

Relationship between pictorial interpretation and comprehension of three spatial relations in school-age children.

Effects on spatial term comprehension as the result of transformations in the stimulus dimensions of six pictures containing the same three figures were explored using Piaget's concept of spatial perspective. A Modified Test of Pictorial Space (MTPS), adapted from Hudson's (1960) studies on non-Western pictorial perception strategies, was administered to 200 children, aged 6 yrs 5 mos to 11 yrs 3 mos. The purpose of the investigation was to gather data on (1) pictorial interpretation as a function of variations in perceptual depth cue complexity and transformations in conceptual perspective and (2) order of acquisition in the comprehension of two sets of spatial terms referring to perceptual object knowledge and more advanced conceptual knowledge of object relations. Significant age and IQ, but not sex, interactions were found for MTPS performance. Data analyses also supported predicted orders of acquisition and indicated that transformation of conceptual perspective better differentiated among the age span than did either perceptual depth cue complexity or comprehension of spatial terms. Findings are discussed in terms of their methodological and substantive implications for constructing and interpreting pictorially-based language comprehension tasks.     

False belief understanding in children with specific language impairment

Children's understanding that people's beliefs may differ from reality is an important milestone in cognitive development. Yet the tasks usually used to assess this understanding rely on the comprehension of complex syntax. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have language abilities that are below age expectations, but their nonlinguistic cognitive abilities--crucial to false belief understanding--are closer to age level. Four conditions of a standard false belief task were administered to 10 children with SLI, 10 children of the same age, and 9 younger children whose language comprehension ability was similar to the children with SLI. The four conditions varied as to their linguistic complexity. The SLI group performed similarly to same-age peers when linguistic complexity was low, but similarly to younger children when linguistic complexity was high. These findings provide evidence that linguistic competence serves as a limiting factor in false belief performance for children with SLI. Educational objectives: Readers will be able to (1) describe different hypotheses regarding the relationship between language and theory of mind development, (2) discuss how linguistic complexity impacts false belief performance for children with SLI, and (3) apply the language/theory of mind relationship when planning intervention.     

A comparison of language achievement in children with cochlear implants and children using hearing aids.

English language achievement of 29 prelingually deaf children with 3 or more years of cochlear implant (CI) experience was compared to the achievement levels of prelingually deaf children who did not have such CI experience. Language achievement was measured by the Rhode Island Test of Language Structure (RITLS), a measure of signed and spoken sentence comprehension, and the Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn), a measure of expressive (signed and spoken) English grammar. When the CI users were compared with their deaf age mates who contributed to the norms of the RITLS, it was found that CI users achieved significantly better scores. Likewise, we found that CI users performed better than 29 deaf children who used hearing aids (HAs) with respect to English grammar achievement as indexed by the IPSyn. Additionally, we found that chronological age highly correlated with IPSyn levels only among the non-CI users, whereas length of CI experience was significantly correlated with IPSyn scores for CI users. Finally, clear differences between those with and without CI experience were found by 2 years of post-implant experience. These data provide evidence that children who receive CIs benefit in the form of improved English language comprehension and production.     

Idiom interpretation in isolation versus context: a developmental study with adolescents

Idiom interpretation under two different presentation modes, Isolation and Context, was examined developmentally in 475 adolescents ages 14 through 17. Results demonstrated that accuracy was greater for idioms in Context than idioms in Isolation, and that accuracy for both presentation modes slowly improved during the target age range. However, even the oldest subjects had not yet mastered the task in either mode. Qualitative analysis indicated that No Response, Literal, and Unrelated error types were produced most often by the youngest subjects but tended to decrease as subject age increased. In general, more No Response, Literal, Related, and Unrelated error types were produced for idioms in Isolation than in Context, but more Restatement errors were produced for idioms in Context. It was also found that idiom interpretation was significantly correlated to specific measures of literacy in 16-year-olds.     

脑瘫幼儿语言理解能力评估分析

目的用儿童词语理解能力测验评估脑瘫幼儿的语言理解能力,研究语言理解与粗大运动、精细运动及构音能力之间的相关性。方法选取24～47个月的脑瘫患JL136例,分别用儿童词语理解能力测验、粗大运动功能评估量表-66、脑瘫儿童精细运动功能测试量表及黄昭鸣-韩知娟词表测试患儿的言语理解能力、粗大运动能力、精细运动能力及构音清晰度;统计患儿语言理解迟缓的发生率,对语言理解能力做年龄．性别维度的差异显著性检验,并检验语言理解与粗大、精细运动及构音能力之间的相关性。结果①76．5％的脑瘫患儿语言理解能力迟缓或严重迟缓;②不同年龄段患儿的语言理解能力有极其显著的差异（F=12．524,P〈0．001）,不同性别患儿的语言理解能力没有显著差异（F=0．140,P〉0．05）;③词语理解能力与月龄、构音清晰度．精细运动能力、粗大运动能力之间存在极其显著的相关性,相关系数分别为0．443（P〈0．001）,0．659（P〈0．001）,0．673（P〈0．001）,0．527（P〈0．001）。结论语言理解迟缓在脑瘫幼儿中发生率高;脑瘫幼儿的语言理解能力随年龄的增长而提高;语言理解能力与粗大。精细运动及构音能力有极其显著的相关性,其语言康复应该引起家长．治疗师的重视。     

Inferences and metaphoric comprehension in unilaterally implanted children with adequate formal oral language performance

Objectives

To assess skills in inferences during conversations and in metaphors comprehension of unilaterally cochlear implanted children with adequate abilities at the formal language tests, comparing them with well-matched hearing peers; to verify the influence of age of implantation on overall skills.

Methods

The study was designed as a matched case–control study. 31 deaf children, unilateral cochlear implant users, with normal linguistic competence at formal language tests were compared with 31 normal hearing matched peers. Inferences and metaphor comprehension skills were assessed through the Implicit Meaning Comprehension, Situations and Metaphors subtests of the Italian Standardized Battery of “Pragmatic Language Skills MEDEA”. Differences between patient and control groups were tested by the Mann–Whitney U test. Correlations between age at implantation and time of implant use with each subtest were investigated by the Spearman rank correlation coefficient.

Results

No significant differences between the two groups were found in inferencing skills (p = 0.24 and p = 0.011 respectively for Situations and Implicit Meaning Comprehension). Regarding figurative language, unilaterally cochlear implanted children performed significantly below their normal hearing peers in Verbal Metaphor comprehension (p = 0.001). Performances were related to age at implantation, but not with time of implant use.

Conclusions

Unilaterally cochlear implanted children with normal language level showed responses similar to NH children in discourse inferences, but not in figurative language comprehension. Metaphors still remains a challenge for unilateral implant users and above all when they have not any reference, as demonstrated by the significant difference in verbal rather than figurative metaphors comprehension. Older age at implantation was related to worse performance for all items. These aspects, until now less investigated, had to receive more attention to deeply understand specific mechanisms involved and possible effects of different levels of figurative language complexity (presence or absence of contextual input, degree of transparency and syntactic frozenness). New insight is needed to orient programs in early intervention settings in considering and adequately responding to all these complex communicative need of children with hearing loss.     

Verbal working memory and sentence comprehension in children with specific language impairment.

In this study we examined the influence of verbal working memory on sentence comprehension in children with SLI. Twelve children with SLI, 12 normally developing children matched for age (CA), and 12 children matched for receptive vocabulary (VM) completed two tasks. In the verbal working memory task, children recalled as many real words as possible under three processing load conditions (i.e., no-load condition; single-load condition, where words were recalled according to physical size of word referents; and dual-load condition, where words were recalled by semantic category and physical size of word referents). In the sentence comprehension task, children listened to linguistically nonredundant (shorter) and linguistically redundant (longer) sentences. Results of the memory task showed that the children with SLI recalled fewer words in the dual-load condition than their CA peers, who showed no condition effect. The SLI and VM groups performed similarly overall, but both groups showed poorer recall in the dual-load condition than in the other conditions. On the sentence comprehension task, children with SLI comprehended fewer sentences of both types than the CA children and fewer redundant sentences relative to themselves and to the VM children. Results were interpreted to suggest that children with SLI (a) have less functional verbal working memory capacity (i.e., ability to coordinate both storage and processing functions) than their CA peers and (b) have greater difficulty managing both their working memory abilities and general processing resources than both age peers and younger children when performing a "complex" off-line sentence processing task.