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Inhibitory control and verb inflection in Italian preschool children
Elena Gandolfi1, Maria Carmen Usai1, Laura Traverso1
1Department of Education Sciences, University of Genoa, Italy.
Journal of Child Language
|March 28, 2022
Summary
Inhibitory control and working memory are linked to complex verb inflections in preschoolers, but not simple ones. This finding sheds light on language development and cognitive skills in young children.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Linguistics
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Understanding the cognitive underpinnings of language acquisition is crucial.
- Verbal inflectional morphology, the system of word endings, is a complex linguistic feature.
- Inhibitory control and working memory are key executive functions that may support language development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between inhibitory control skills and Italian verbal inflectional morphology.
- To determine if these associations persist after accounting for receptive vocabulary and verbal working memory.
Main Methods:
- Assessed Italian preschoolers (aged 4-6) on inhibitory control (response inhibition, interference suppression) and verb inflection tasks.
- Employed hierarchical multiple regression analyses to examine associations.
Main Results:
- Working memory and interference suppression scores were significantly associated with complex verb inflections.
- No significant association was found between these cognitive skills and simple verb inflections.
Conclusions:
- Executive functions, specifically working memory and interference suppression, play a role in acquiring complex inflectional morphology.
- Simple inflectional morphology acquisition may rely on different cognitive mechanisms.
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