Relational Language Facilitates Analogy in Children

One important function of language is to name relations . Preschool children performed a simple mapping task with and without hearing spatial prepositions calling attention to key relations . Children at 44 months were successful only if they were in the language condition . By 49 months, children were competent on the task regardless of condition, although there were still benefits of language . These results suggests that relational language can therefore be an important tool for highlighting relational commonalities children may otherwise tail to use .

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