Table 5.10 Children’s responses in the inference task for both post tests

Responses focusing on the “action of the object" and the “functional properties" of the
target items (successful performance) were the more frequent for both post tests. Particularly,
the children provided significantly more “action to the object” responses than “don ^,t know”
(immediate: Wilcoxon: Z=5.1, p<.0000; delayed: Wilcoxon: Z=5.8, p<.0000), “irrelevant”
(immediate:Wilcoxon: Z=9.3, p<.0000; delayed: Wilcoxon: Z=9.3, p<.0000) and “functional
properties” responses (immediate: Wilcoxon: Z=2,4, p<.05). Furthermore, children provided
significantly more “functional properties” responses than “don’t know” (immediate:
Wilcoxon: Z=2.9, p<.005; delayed: Wilcoxon: Z=4.9, p<.0000) and “irrelevant” responses
(immediate: Wilcoxon: Z=7.4, p<.0000; delayed: Wilcoxon: Z=7.7, p<.0000).

The distribution of responses separately by age and linguistic condition is presented in
Appendices 5.15 and 5.16.The same pattern was evident for both types of analyses.
Furthermore, the analysis by age revealed that the answers of the 4 year-olds remained the
same during the delayed post test (Action on the object responses: immediate = 44.5% and
delayed = 45.3%; Functional properties: immediate = 22.6% and delayed = 25%). The 5 year
olds “action on the object” responses decreased during the delayed post test (immediate =
46% and delayed = 42.2%), while the “functionalproperties” responses increased during the
delayed post test (immediate: 28.9% and delayed=39.8%).The increase of the “functional
properties” was significant (Wilcoxon: Z=2.3, p<.05). The same pattern was evident for the
6 year-olds who also provided more responses focusing on the “action to the object” and on
“functionalproperties” than the 4- and 5 year-olds.

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