Freed Jenny, Cain Kate
University of Manchester, School of Psychological Sciences, Manchester, UK.
Lancaster University, Department of Psychology, Lancaster, UK.
Int J Lang Commun Disord. 2017 Jan;52(1):95-105. doi: 10.1111/1460-6984.12260. Epub 2016 Jun 14.
Comprehension is critical for classroom learning and educational success. Inferences are integral to good comprehension: successful comprehension requires the listener to generate local coherence inferences, which involve integrating information between clauses, and global coherence inferences, which involve integrating textual information with background knowledge to infer motivations, themes, etc. A central priority for the diagnosis of comprehension difficulties and our understanding of why these difficulties arise is the development of valid assessment instruments.
We explored typically developing children's ability to make local and global coherence inferences using a novel assessment of listening comprehension. The aims were to determine whether children were more likely to make the target inferences when these were asked during story presentation versus after presentation of the story, and whether there were any age differences between conditions.
METHODS & PROCEDURES: Children in Years 3 (n = 29) and 5 (n = 31) listened to short stories presented either in a segmented format, in which questions to assess local and global coherence inferences were asked at specific points during story presentation, or in a whole format, when all the questions were asked after the story had been presented.
OUTCOMES & RESULTS: There was developmental progression between age groups for both types of inference question. Children also scored higher on the global coherence inference questions than the local coherence inference questions. There was a benefit of the segmented format for younger children, particularly for the local inference questions.
CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The results suggest that children are more likely to make target inferences if prompted during presentation of the story, and that this format is particularly facilitative for younger children and for local coherence inferences. This has implications for the design of comprehension assessments as well as for supporting children with comprehension difficulties in the classroom.
理解能力对于课堂学习和学业成功至关重要。推理是良好理解能力不可或缺的一部分：成功的理解需要听众做出局部连贯推理，即将子句间的信息进行整合，以及全局连贯推理，即将文本信息与背景知识相结合以推断动机、主题等。诊断理解困难以及理解这些困难产生原因的一个核心重点是开发有效的评估工具。
我们使用一种新颖的听力理解评估方法，探究了发育正常儿童做出局部和全局连贯推理的能力。目的是确定在故事呈现过程中提问目标推理与在故事呈现后提问相比，儿童是否更有可能做出目标推理，以及不同条件下是否存在年龄差异。
三年级（n = 29）和五年级（n = 31）的儿童听简短故事，故事呈现方式分为两种，一种是分段形式，即在故事呈现过程中的特定点提出评估局部和全局连贯推理的问题；另一种是整体形式，即在故事呈现后提出所有问题。
对于这两种类型的推理问题，不同年龄组之间都存在发展进程。儿童在全局连贯推理问题上的得分也高于局部连贯推理问题。分段形式对年幼儿童有益，尤其是对于局部推理问题。
结果表明，如果在故事呈现过程中得到提示，儿童更有可能做出目标推理，并且这种形式对年幼儿童以及局部连贯推理特别有帮助。这对理解评估的设计以及在课堂上帮助有理解困难的儿童具有启示意义。
