Verbal and perceptual analogical reasoning and proportional metaphor comprehension in young children

In contrast to the common assumption that young children have little or no ability to reason by analogy or to comprehend proportional metaphors, the present study demonstrated that children as young as age 5 years have an emerging ability to solve both verbal and perceptual proportional analogy problems and to detect the meanings of proportional metaphoric sentences. These results were largely because the experimental tasks were designed to minimize the number of factors that would restrict the performance of young children. The results indicated that the years between 5 and 7 mark a steady improvement in analogical reasoning and proportional metaphor comprehension, but that children ages 5, 6, and 7 display a wide-ranging ability in these areas. It was also found that perceptual analogical reasoning was statistically related to verbal analogical reasoning and to proportional metaphor comprehension, and that perceptual analogical reasoning and proportional metaphor comprehension were both statistically related to receptive vocabulary development.