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A longitudinal study of idiom and text comprehension*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2007

M. CHIARA LEVORATO ,
MAJA ROCH  and
BARBARA NESI
M. CHIARA LEVORATO*
Affiliation:
University of Padova, Italy
MAJA ROCH
Affiliation:
University of Padova, Italy
BARBARA NESI
Affiliation:
University of Padova, Italy
*
Address for correspondence: M. C. Levorato, Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Via Venezia, 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The relation between text and idiom comprehension in children with poor text comprehension skills was investigated longitudinally. In the first phase of the study, six-year-old first graders with different levels of text comprehension were compared in an idiom and sentence comprehension task. Text comprehension was shown to be more closely related to idiom comprehension than sentence comprehension. The follow-up study, carried out eight months later on less-skilled text comprehenders, investigated whether an improvement in text comprehension was paralleled by an improvement in idiom comprehension. The development of sentence comprehension was also taken into account. Children who improved in text comprehension also improved in idiom comprehension; this improvement was, instead, weakly related to an improvement in sentence comprehension. The relationship between text and idiom comprehension is discussed in the light of the Global Elaboration Model (Levorato & Cacciari, 1995).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , August 2007 , pp. 473 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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