Key Andings from the inference task

To what extent does children ^,s performance on the inference task differ by age 1

• Significant correlations were found between children’s age and their performance on
the inference task both with and without controlling for their vocabulary and memory
for both post tests.

• The older children performed better than the younger ones. Significant differences
were found for both post tests. Post hoc analysis for the immediate post test revealed
that the 6 year-olds performed significantly better than the 4 year-olds. There was also
a trend for 6 year-olds to perform better than the 5 year-olds. No significant
differences were found between the 4- and 5- year olds. Post hoc analysis of the
delayed post test revealed the same pattern. No significant differences were found
between the 5 and the 6 year-olds again.

• The older children performed better than the younger ones within each linguistic
condition for both post tests. The differences were significant for the children from
Definition condition during the delayed post test.

To what extent does children’s performance on the inference task differ by linguistic
condition?

• Significant differences by linguistic condition were found during the immediate post
test. Post hoc analyses demonstrated that during the immediate post test children in
the Inference condition performed significantly better on the inference task than the
children from the Definition and Analogy condition. Furthermore, there was a trend
for the children in the Inference condition to perform better than the children in the
Lexical contrast condition. During the delayed post test the same pattern as before
was found, however the differences were not significant. No significant differences
between the other conditions were found.

• Linguistic condition differences within each age group were also investigated. The
same pattern as before was found within each age group, however the differences
were not significant.

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