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Idiom understanding in children and adolescents with Down syndrome: The role of text comprehension skills

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2010

MAJA ROCH  and
MARIA CHIARA LEVORATO
MAJA ROCH
Affiliation:
University of Padova
MARIA CHIARA LEVORATO*
Affiliation:
University of Padova
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Maria Chiara Levorato, Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Padova, via Venezia 8, Padova 35133, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

In the current study, idiom understanding was analyzed in relation to the ability to process the linguistic context in which the idiom is embedded with the hypothesis that there is a strong relationship between text and idiom comprehension. This hypothesis was derived from the global elaboration model. Nonfamiliar idioms, both transparent and opaque, were presented in the context of a story to 20 participants with Down syndrome aged between 9 years, 9 months (9;9) and 18;1 and to 20 first-grade typically developing children aged between 6;3 and 7;3 who had the same level of text comprehension. Results show that for both groups differences in idiom understanding can be accounted for by differences in text comprehension: the same relationship holds between idiom and text comprehension in Down syndrome and in typical development and is not influenced by idiom type (semantic analyzability) or by sentence comprehension. The results provide support to the global elaboration model and are discussed in light of it.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 2010 , pp. 531 - 550
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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