Does Cognitive Development Predict Semantic Integration

JOHNSON, JANET W., and SCHOLNICK, ELLN KOFSKY. Does Cognitive Development Predict Semantic Integration? CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 73-78. In order to test whether semantic integration can be predicted from the specific logical skills at the memorizer's command, stories containing implicit inclusion and seriation inferences were given to third and fourth graders previously diagnosed as includers-seriators, includers-nonseriators, nonincluders-seriators, or nonincludersnonseriators and college students who mastered inclusion and seriation. A recognition test with true and false premises and inferences was then administered. Adults were more likely to recognize new statements making the inferred inclusion or seriation relations explicit than other new sentences inconsistent with the stories. Child seriators endorsed true seriation inferences (a) more than true inclusion inferences, (b) more than statements inconsistent with the seriation theme, and (c) more than nonseriators. Endorsement of inclusion inferences was low and did not vary with the child's diagnosed cognitive status. While semantic integration was predictable from the child's seriation knowledge, possibly the later acquisition of inclusion skills and the dependence of those skills on semantic knowledge hampered application of the skills to memory coding.

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