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Related Experiment Videos

When do children avoid backwards coreference?

J R Hsu1, H S Cairns, S Eisenberg

  • 1Department of Communication Disorders, William Paterson College of New Jersey, Wayne 07470.

Journal of Child Language
|June 1, 1991
PubMed
Summary

Young children initially struggle with pronoun interpretation, preferring internal coreference. Avoiding backwards coreference is a skill that develops around age six.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental linguistics
  • Child language acquisition

Background:

  • Pronoun interpretation is a complex linguistic task.
  • Understanding coreference resolution in children is crucial for language development research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether very young children avoid backwards coreference in pronoun interpretation.
  • To determine the developmental trajectory of backwards coreference avoidance.

Main Methods:

  • Eighty-one children (aged 3;1 to 8;0) and eight adults participated.
  • Participants acted out four types of pronominal sentences.
  • Cross-sectional data and individual response patterns were analyzed.

Main Results:

  • Children initially preferred internal coreference, even when structurally disallowed.
  • Avoidance of backwards coreference emerged as a late-developing phenomenon.
  • Six-year-olds showed characteristics of avoiding backwards coreference.
  • Adult-like patterns appeared in some young children and became dominant by age seven.

Conclusions:

  • Backwards coreference avoidance is not innate but develops over time.
  • Language acquisition involves overcoming initial processing preferences.
  • Seven-year-olds predominantly exhibit adult-like pronoun interpretation strategies.

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