Preschool children were tested on their comprehension of the comparatives, "taller,""shorter,""more," and "less" in five types of sentences. Results suggest that many children can understand two-dimensional comparisons, but perform poorly on second-clause subjects pronoun sentences because of uncertainty about the referent of the pronoun. (SDH)

This monograph is based on a doctoral thesis submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota in August 1969. (MG)

Sixteen children (aged 14 to 26 months), who were reported by their parents to overextend, were tested for overextension in both language production and comprehension. The children were first asked to name each of a series of pictures of inappropriate exemplars of the words they were reported to overextend. Those words that were overextended, a…

Children in grades 1-3 were asked to retell and explain a series of riddles. Ability to recall riddles was not predictive of ability to explain them. Three cognitive factors seemed to determine level of riddle competence. Implications concern the relationship of riddle competence to reading ability and metalinguistic facility. (CHK)

In order to investigate the development of word-formation abilities, 3-, 5-, and 7-year-olds were asked to act out with toys, judge, and make up sentences containing instances of class extension. Some sample sentences are "Can you upside-down the clown?" and "Broom the spoon." Children dealt with such sentences in much the same…

Theories concerning the relationship between language acquisition and cognitive development are examined, and implications for education are discussed. There is disagreement about the sources and processes involved in achieving linguistic performance, and in particular, determining linguistic competence. Among the many theories and modifications…

Research evidence currently indicates that young children's communication skills for both the speaker and the listener roles are often ineffective. The accuracy of children's communication improves gradually over the elementary school years. Current thinking in the area of metacognition may be very useful in understanding the development of…

Three empirical studies were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that the "easy to see" construction (such as in the sentence "children are hard to understand") is acquired at a younger age than the 7-9 year range reported by previous studies (Cambon and Sinclair, 1974; Chomsky, 1969; 1972; Cromer, 1970; Kessel, 1970).…

A total of 224 subjects participated in a study to determine how children and adults comprehend logical connectives. Specifically, the study examined the effects of age, content, and practice on the encoding and combination of logical relationships expressed by six types of logical connectives: conjunction, disjunction, conditionality,…

Elicited imitation occurs in an experimental situation during which subjects are requested to repeat a model sentence constructed so as to include specific desired grammatical structures. Elicited translation involves giving subjects a sentence in one language, and asking them to say the same thing, but in another language; elicited translation…

This is a survey of techniques that have been used to test language comprehension. The study of research completed in this field points up the fact that there is no single technique that universally gives valid and reliable information. Various definitions of language comprehension are examined with special emphasis placed on implications for the…

Investigations using English have shown that a number of linguistic constructions associated with reporting verbs, and verbs concerning plans, present comprehension difficulties to children over the age of five. The corresponding constructions in Greek involved ambiguity appreciation, and tests of monoglots and bilinguals indicated that a…

The hypothesized ability of adult native speakers to understand linguistic ambiguity was tested. An approach developed to determine linguistic competence tested the ability of 90 participants in individual interviews to interpret sentences having the potential for multiple interpretations. The hypothesis was not supported by the data. A hierarchy…

The ability of children at different ages to distinguish instructions to "ask" from instructions to "tell" and the types of structures used to express these directives were studied. Subjects were 120 children, aged 2 years 6 months to 6 years 6 months. Children were instructed to either ask or tell an adult or another child to give them puzzle…

The purpose of this research was to develop methods to study the effects of context on children's comprehension and production of temporal terms such as "before,""after,""next,""then," and "but first." A longitudinal study, using naturalistic and traditional laboratory methods, and three…