TY - JOUR

T1 - Assessing school-aged children’s inference making

T2 - the effect of test story format in listening comprehension

AU - Freed, Jenny

AU - Cain, Katherine Elizabeth

N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Freed, J. and Cain, K. (2017), Assessing school-aged children's inference-making: the effect of story test format in listening comprehension. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 52: 95–105. doi:10.1111/1460-6984.12260 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1460-6984.12260/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.

PY - 2017/1

Y1 - 2017/1

N2 - Background. Comprehension is critical for classroom learning and educational success. Inferences are integral to good comprehension: Successful comprehension requires the listener to generate local coherence inferences, which involve integrating information between clauses, and global coherence inferences, which involve integrating textual information with background knowledge to infer motivations, themes, etc. A central priority for the diagnosis of comprehension difficulties and our understanding of why these difficulties arise is the development of valid assessment instruments.Aims. We explored typically developing children’s ability to make local and global coherence inferences using a novel assessment of listening comprehension. Our aims were to determine whether children were more likely to make the target inferences when these were asked during story presentation vs. after presentation of the story, and whether there were any age differences between conditions.Methods & Procedures. Children in Years 3 (n=29) and 5 (n=31) listened to short stories presented either in a segmented format, in which questions to assess local and global coherence inferences were asked at specific points during story presentation, or in a whole format, when all of the questions were asked after the story had been presented.Outcomes & Results. There was developmental progression between age groups for both types of inference question. Children also scored higher on the global coherence inference questions than the local coherence inference questions. There was a benefit of the segmented format for younger children, particularly for the local inference questions. Conclusions & Implications. The results suggest that children are more likely to make target inferences if prompted during presentation of the story, and that this format is particularly facilitative for younger children and for local coherence inferences. This has implications for the design of comprehension assessments as well as for supporting children with comprehension difficulties in the classroom.

AB - Background. Comprehension is critical for classroom learning and educational success. Inferences are integral to good comprehension: Successful comprehension requires the listener to generate local coherence inferences, which involve integrating information between clauses, and global coherence inferences, which involve integrating textual information with background knowledge to infer motivations, themes, etc. A central priority for the diagnosis of comprehension difficulties and our understanding of why these difficulties arise is the development of valid assessment instruments.Aims. We explored typically developing children’s ability to make local and global coherence inferences using a novel assessment of listening comprehension. Our aims were to determine whether children were more likely to make the target inferences when these were asked during story presentation vs. after presentation of the story, and whether there were any age differences between conditions.Methods & Procedures. Children in Years 3 (n=29) and 5 (n=31) listened to short stories presented either in a segmented format, in which questions to assess local and global coherence inferences were asked at specific points during story presentation, or in a whole format, when all of the questions were asked after the story had been presented.Outcomes & Results. There was developmental progression between age groups for both types of inference question. Children also scored higher on the global coherence inference questions than the local coherence inference questions. There was a benefit of the segmented format for younger children, particularly for the local inference questions. Conclusions & Implications. The results suggest that children are more likely to make target inferences if prompted during presentation of the story, and that this format is particularly facilitative for younger children and for local coherence inferences. This has implications for the design of comprehension assessments as well as for supporting children with comprehension difficulties in the classroom.

KW - inference

KW - local coherence

KW - global coherence

KW - school-aged children

U2 - 10.1111/1460-6984.12260

DO - 10.1111/1460-6984.12260

M3 - Journal article

VL - 52

SP - 95

EP - 105

JO - International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders

JF - International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders

SN - 1368-2822

IS - 1

ER -