Age-related improvement in complex language comprehension: Results of a cross-sectional study with 361 children aged 5 to 15

Abstract

We investigated age-related improvement in speed and accuracy of complex language comprehension with 361 children attending kindergarten and the 2nd, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Language comprehension was measured using both the neuropsychological procedure proposed by Luria (1966, 1980) and an adapted version of the Token Test. Levels of short-term memory and verbal intelligence were controlled for in the evaluation of language comprehension. The findings show that the accuracy of language comprehension continued to develop until the 6th grade, whereas the speed of language comprehension continued to improve up until the 7th grade. We thus conclude that the complex language comprehension of children is not fully developed until early adolescence. We further contend that the speed of complex language comprehension appears to be more sensitive than accuracy with respect to measuring developmental differences.

We are grateful to the schools, parents, and, most of all, children who participated in this study. In addition, we would like to thank the graduate students who were responsible for collecting the data: Marieke Van Gompel, Floortje Smeets, Martine Smeets, Leonie Steenis, Daphne Teerling, and Priscilla Theunissen. Finally, we would like to thank Peter Coopmans for his useful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

Notes

¹In English-speaking areas, rectangles have been substituted by squares, to reduce the number of syllables that must be processed. In Dutch, however, this has never been necessary because the Dutch words for rectangle (“rechthoek”) and square (“vierkant”) both contain two syllables.