Listening comprehension in preschoolers: The role of memory

Abstract

The current study analyzed the relationship between text comprehension and memory skills in preschoolers. We were interested in verifying the hypothesis that memory is a specific contributor to listening comprehension in preschool children after controlling for verbal abilities. We were also interested in analyzing the developmental path of the relationship between memory skills and listening comprehension in the age range considered. Forty-four, 4-year-olds (mean age = 4 years and 6 months, SD = 4 months) and 40, 5-year-olds (mean age = 5 years and 4 months, SD = 5 months) participated in the study. The children were administered measures to evaluate listening comprehension ability (story comprehension), short-term and working memory skills (forward and backward word span), verbal intelligence and receptive vocabulary. Results showed that both short-term and working memory predicted unique and independent variance in listening comprehension after controlling for verbal abilities, with working memory explaining additional variance over and above short-term memory. The predictive power of memory skills was stable in the age range considered. Results also confirm a strong relation between verbal abilities and listening comprehension in 4- and 5-year-old children.

What Is Listening Comprehension and What Does It Take to Improve Listening Comprehension?

“…Studies indicate that oral language comprehension and reading comprehension tap into the same processes, particularly for profi cient readers (Townsend, Carrithers, & Bever, 1987 ), and that component skills that contribute to reading comprehension for children (e.g., grades 2 and above; Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2004 ;Cromley & Azevedo, 2007 ) are similar to those that contribute to listening comprehension (Florit, Roch, Altoè, & Levorato, 2009 ;Kim & Phillips, 2014 ;Kim, 2015Kim, , 2016Lepola et al, 2012 ). However, for developing readers, word reading ability is likely to constrain reading comprehension (Perfetti, 2007 ), and therefore, in the review of literature below, we draw on studies which focused on oral language comprehension, not reading comprehension.…”

“…Although these have been primarily examined in the context of reading comprehension, recent studies indicate that these language and cognitive skills are also related to children's listening comprehension. Evidence includes working memory (Florit et al, 2009(Florit et al, , 2013Kim, 2016 ;Was & Woltz, 2007 ), vocabulary (Florit et al, 2009 ;Florit, Roch, & Levorato, 2014 ;Kendeou, Bohn-Gettler, White, & van den Broek, 2008 ;Kim, 2016 ;Tompkins et al, 2013 ), grammatical knowledge (Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999 ;Kim, 2015Kim, , 2016Tunmer, 1989 ), inference (Florit et al, 2014 ;Kendeou et al, 2008 ;Kim, 2016 ;Lepola et al, 2012 ;Tompkins et al, 2013 ), theory of mind (Kim, 2015(Kim, , 2016Kim & Phillips, 2014 ) and comprehension monitoring (Kim, 2015 ;Kim & Phillips, 2014 ). It is of note that these theoretical models assume that the same processes are hypothesized to be involved in text comprehension across languages.…”

Receptive Language Skills in Slovak-Speaking Children With Intellectual Disability: Understanding Words, Sentences, and Stories

“…Comprehension skills are well described at a word level, both in typical and clinical populations, but sentence level comprehension skills are less well understood, particularly in children with ID. Similarly, listening comprehension has been extensively studied in young children (e.g., Florit, Roch, Altoe, & Levorato, 2009;Lepola et al, 2012), but it is less well understood in children with ID.…”

Reconocimiento auditivo de palabras, léxico pasivo y comprensión de textos descriptivos orales en preescolares

“…Si bien en la literatura especializada se encuentra abundante evidencia a favor de considerar la memoria como un factor decisivo en la comprensión, tanto en adultos como en niños (Stothard & Hulme, 1992;Vellutino et al, 2007;Florit et al, 2009;Oakhill & Cain, 2012), los datos no son del todo consistentes al hacer la distinción entre MCP y MO. Tal como reconocen Florit et al (2009), la medición de la una conlleva procedimientos distintos respecto de la otra. En su investigación, los autores italianos aplicaron una prueba de amplitud de memoria en palabras en forma directa e inversa y consideraron que esta última constituía una medida de MO.…”