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Published on: November 30, 2018
Comprehension of "can" predicts performance on a nonverbal measure of modal concepts at 48 but not 36 months
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA, United States.
Abstract:
Most children use modal words before they turn 3. Do they have the modal concepts that adults express with those words? Existing evidence is conflicted. The current study improves on existing language comprehension tasks and improves on existing nonverbal measures of modal concepts. It applies both tests to the same children for a richer picture of modal cognition. 54 36- and 48-month-olds (29 female, 25 male, 89% White) participated between October 2018 and April 2019. A third of participants fail both tasks, showing no sign of modal concepts. Among 48-month-olds, performance on the tasks is related (log(OR) 1.73); some variable relates these tasks. Possible explanations for the full pattern of data are discussed.
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