• There was a trend for the children with high phonological memory to perform better
on the analogy task than the children with low phonological memory. Analysis within
each age group revealed the same pattern. Significant differences were found for the
4- and the 5 year-olds during the delayed post test. The same pattern was evident
within each linguistic condition. Significant differences were found for the
Definition condition during the immediate post test.

Error analysis

• Different responses were given by the children to the Analogy task which were the
following: (a) “No responses” (b) “Irrelevant responses'” (c ) “Shape similar
word^,∖d) “Use of a basic level word"(o) “Given analogy”.

• The analogy task was quite difficult for the children since there was a high percentage
of “don ^,t know” responses. From the responses given, most of the children provided
“given analogies” as well as “basic level word” responses. The same pattern was
evident within each age group and each linguistic condition except for the Analogy
condition. In the Analogy condition most of the children provided significantly more
“given analogies” than other responses at both post tests.

Concluding remarks for the analogy task

► The analysis of the Analogy task demonstrated that the 5- and the 6 year-olds
performed significantly better than the 4 year-olds for both post tests. The same
pattern was also found within each linguistic condition. Differences by linguistic
condition were also found. The children in the Analogy condition performed
significantly better than the children in the other conditions for both post tests. Also
the children performed better during the immediate than the delayed pos test. On the
other hand, children in the Analogy condition performed significantly better during
the delayed than the immediate post test. No significant differences in children’s
performance were found by their existing vocabulary. On the other hand, there was
a trend for the children with high phonological memory to perform better than the
children with low phonological memory for both post tests. The same pattern was
found within each age group. Significant differences were found for the 4- and 5 year-
olds. Furthermore, significant differences were found for the Definition condition.

152

<<   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   >>

More intriguing information