Who, why, when, and how: a development study
- 1 June 1978
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Child Language
- Vol. 5 (3) , 477-488
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900002105
Abstract
Fifty children between the ages of 3; 0 and 5; 6 were asked six types of wh- questions following videotaped sequences. It is argued that differential difficulty of various forms of who questions supports a parallel model of information retrieval and processing during discourse. The differential difficulty of why and when questions are, however, attributable to a necessary progression in the ability to encode the relevant concepts linguistically. Responses to how questions are difficult because they involve a number of unrelated skills.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- On the acquisition of the meaning of before and afterJournal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1971