Elementary school age children's comprehension of specific idiomatic expressions

This study explored the ability of elementary school age children to comprehend six idiomatic expressions. Eighty linguistically normal children, 20 from each of four different grade levels (kindergarten, second grade, fourth grade, and sixth grade) participated as subjects. All of the children completed a task designed to probe comprehension of specific idioms. A short story was presented, after which the subjects were required to identify events in the story, which were described using idiomatic phrases. When examined as a group, comprehension of the idioms studied improved with increasing age. However, when examined individually, performance was found to be highly variable from idiom to idiom. These results are discussed with regard to clinical implications in the assessment and management of language-disordered children.