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Producing and understanding conditionals : when does it happen and why does it matter?
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Badger, Julia and Mellanby, Jane (2018) Producing and understanding conditionals : when does it happen and why does it matter? Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development, 6 (1). pp. 21-41. ISSN 2148-1997.
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Abstract
Comprehending complex conditional sentences plays an integral part in
understanding many aspects of learning at school, particularly in
subjects such as science and history, where hypotheses and alternative
explanations are important. While simple conditionals are produced by
pre-school children, the acquisition of complex conditionals occurs later.
This cross-sectional and longitudinal design investigated the trajectory
for production and comprehension of type II and type III conditionals in
two cohorts of children, one starting in January of year 1 (age 5-6;
n=225), the second in January of year 2 (age 6-7; n=292), with three
measurement points over a 9 month period. Production was measured
using a repetition task, comprehension by providing conditional
sentences and asking the children to say whether four statements about
each sentence were true. Single word reading and verbal and non-verbal
ability were also measured. Production occurred much earlier than
comprehension. By the start of year 3, 71% of children could repeat type
II sentences and 52% could repeat type III sentences. In contrast, at the
same point, fewer than 20% of children could understand either type II
or type III conditionals. Logistic regressions showed that while
production of type III conditionals predicted comprehension of both type
II and type III conditionals 9 months later, comprehension of type II was
also predicted by single word reading while type III comprehension was
also predicted by ability. Acquisition of conditionals is likely to play an
important role in academic success.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for Educational Development, Appraisal and Research (CEDAR) | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Child Language Acquisition and Development | ||||
Publisher: | Science-res Publishing | ||||
ISSN: | 2148-1997 | ||||
Official Date: | 30 March 2018 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 6 | ||||
Number: | 1 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 21-41 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) |
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