To investigate young children's understanding of metaphorical language, 90 chidren from preschool to third grade were read stories ending with metaphorical sentences of varying degrees of difficulty--sentences representing more or less predictable story outcomes and differing in the complexity and explicitness of their figures of speech. After…

Reports three experiments which examined preschool, first-grade, and third-grade children's understanding of metaphorical language. Subjects acted out short stories which ended in metaphorical sentences by using toys. Predictability of the story endings and the complexity of the metaphorical sentences are found to affect metaphor comprehension.…

Examines the effects of age on hearing children's oral rather than written story production and whether there are age-related changes in the signed productions of deaf children comparable to those observed in hearing age-mates. (HOD)