Comprehension and production of figurative language by Afrikaans-speaking children with and without specific language impairment

Merwe, Kristin van der; Adendorff, Ralph

doi:10.2989/16073614.2012.693708

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 45 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Cognitve, linguistic, and pragmatic dimensions serve a function in the utilization of figurative language (Merwe & Adendorff, 2012). Cognitive aspect functions in establishing a certain connection between two entities taking place in a figure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining Children’s Simile Comprehension Skills

Bayat

Kuz

2020

CJES

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study aimed to determine the children’s skills of comprehending similes. The participants of the research consisted of 120 children that were aged 5-6 and enrolled in preschool education institutions. The data were collected with a 16-item success test. The items in the test were orally administered to the participants during the interviews. The responses were recorded, and the analysis was carried out through the evaluation of the content of the recordings by two experts. The answers were encoded and transferred to the statistics program. Depending on the research questions, descriptive statistics were calculated, and a series of Mann Whitney U test was performed. According to the findings, the success rate of the item about simile comprehension at which participants were most successful appeared to be 56.7%. In addition, it was found that the participants’ levels of simile comprehension did not differ based on gender, but they differed based on their duration of continuing preschool education. Participants attending public schools were more successful than those attending private preschools, and the 6-year-old children appeared to be more successful than the 5-year-olds. Keywords: Comprehension, figurative language, language acquisition, simile, metaphor;

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining Children’s Simile Comprehension Skills

Bayat

Kuz

2020

CJES

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Prior studies of idioms in SLI reveal strong performance with forced choice comprehension tasks, in which the experimenter provides pictures or definitions and the child chooses the best match for an idiom [ 23 , 24 ], though not in all studies [ 25 ]. However, children with SLI frequently perform poorly on idiom definition tasks, whose difficulty is exacerbated by a reliance on structural language to craft the response [ 23 , 26 , 27 ], though again, not in all studies [ 27 , 28 ]. Impairments are also seen with non-verbal play acting tasks, in which children use toys to act out the meaning of an idiom [ 13 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Real-Time Comprehension of Idioms by Typical Children, Children with Specific Language Impairment and Children with Autism

Walenski¹,

Love²

2018

J Speech Pathol Ther

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ObjectiveWe examined on-line auditory idiom comprehension in typically developing (TD) children, children with specific language impairment (SLI), and children with autism. Theories of idiom processing in adults agree on a reliance on lexical/semantic memory for these forms, but differ in their specifics. The Lexical Representation hypothesis claims that literal and non-literal meanings are activated in parallel. The Configuration hypothesis claims that a non-literal meaning will take precedence, such that a literal meaning may not be activated at all.MethodChildren aged 6–16 years listened to sentences containing idioms for a cross-modal priming task. The idioms were ambiguous between an idiomatic and a literal meaning. We looked at priming for both meanings at the offset of the idiom.ResultsTD children (n=14) and children with SLI (n=7) primed for the idiomatic but not literal meaning of the idiom. Children with autism (n=5) instead primed for the literal but not idiomatic meaning.ConclusionsTD children showed an adult-like pattern, consistent with predictions of the Configuration Hypothesis. Children with SLI showed the typical pattern, whereas the atypical pattern observed for children with autism may reflect a particular deficit with complex material in semantic memory.

show abstract

“…Similarly, Spanish-speaking children with LIs aged 5 to 12 scored lower than their peers on a task aimed to assess their comprehension of figurative language (Navarrete et al, 2004). Interestingly, however, children with LIs who do not have a pragmatic disorder and have resolved their linguistic comprehension difficulties might perform like their peers with typical development on such tasks (e.g., van der Merwe and Adendorff, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comprehension of idiomatic expressions by Russian speaking typically developing children

Nadezda¹,

Elena²,

Marini³

2017

Psych. Rus.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background. The ability to understand idiomatic expressions begins to develop at an early age. However, such skill is not achieved within the same age and at the same pace in children speaking different languages. Objective. This study assesses comprehension of idiomatic expressions by Russian-speaking monolingual children aged 4 to 12 and monitoring the age dynamics of figurative language understanding. Design. 80 children were split in 4 age groups balanced for gender and level of formal education. The participants were asked to identify the correct non-literal meaning of 10 idioms. For each idiomatic expression, children heard three potential interpretations (one correct, and two incorrect ones of which one was literal while the other was overtly wrong). Results. Age-related differences were analysed by performing a series of univariate ANOVAs. These analyses showed that already at preschool age children begin to understand some kinds of idiomatic expressions and that such ability slowly develops throughout childhood. Interestingly, until the age of 6 children predominantly interpreted idioms literally. By the age of 7 their ability to correctly understand the non-literal meanings of idiomatic expressions enhanced significantly until it reached a plateau around the age of 12. Conclusion. The results of the study are in line with those found for children speaking other languages. The findings are interpreted in light of recent theories of language and cognitive development. Potential limitations of the study are also discussed.

show abstract

Comprehension and production of figurative language by Afrikaans-speaking children with and without specific language impairment

Cited by 4 publications

References 45 publications

Examining Children’s Simile Comprehension Skills

Examining Children’s Simile Comprehension Skills

The Real-Time Comprehension of Idioms by Typical Children, Children with Specific Language Impairment and Children with Autism

Comprehension of idiomatic expressions by Russian speaking typically developing children

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About