TY - JOUR

T1 - Children’s development of conversational and reading inference skills

T2 - A call for a collaborative approach

AU - Wilson, Elspeth

AU - Cain, Kate

AU - Davies, Catherine

AU - Gibson, Jenny

AU - Joseph, Holly

AU - Serratrice, Ludovica

AU - Vogelzang, Margreet

PY - 2023/10/20

Y1 - 2023/10/20

N2 - In this perspectives article, we call for a collaborative approach to research on children’s development of conversational inferences and of reading inferences. Despite the clear commonalities in their focus, the two rich research traditions have remained almost entirely separate, primarily within the fields of Developmental Psychology and Experimental Pragmatics, on the one hand, and Cognitive, Developmental and Educational Psychology on the other. We briefly survey research on conversational and reading inferences, and show how both similarities and differences in theoretical approach, methodologies and findings raise significant questions, including: What effect does both context (conversation or reading) and modality (oral, visual, written) have on the need for children to make inferences, and for the opportunities for them to learn to do so? And how do linguistic and background knowledge, sociocognitive and environmental factors support different inferences across contexts and modalities? We propose that a collaborative agenda is crucial, in which interdisciplinary researchers develop theoretical models of how different types of inference cluster together and are supported or affected by the context, modality, and other linguistic, sociocognitive and environmental factors. And they must also develop methodologies which enable reliable and valid measures of inferencing ability that can capture quantitative and qualitative changes across development. Ultimately this will contribute to better understanding of children’s pragmatic development as well as teaching and intervention practices in communication and reading comprehension.

AB - In this perspectives article, we call for a collaborative approach to research on children’s development of conversational inferences and of reading inferences. Despite the clear commonalities in their focus, the two rich research traditions have remained almost entirely separate, primarily within the fields of Developmental Psychology and Experimental Pragmatics, on the one hand, and Cognitive, Developmental and Educational Psychology on the other. We briefly survey research on conversational and reading inferences, and show how both similarities and differences in theoretical approach, methodologies and findings raise significant questions, including: What effect does both context (conversation or reading) and modality (oral, visual, written) have on the need for children to make inferences, and for the opportunities for them to learn to do so? And how do linguistic and background knowledge, sociocognitive and environmental factors support different inferences across contexts and modalities? We propose that a collaborative agenda is crucial, in which interdisciplinary researchers develop theoretical models of how different types of inference cluster together and are supported or affected by the context, modality, and other linguistic, sociocognitive and environmental factors. And they must also develop methodologies which enable reliable and valid measures of inferencing ability that can capture quantitative and qualitative changes across development. Ultimately this will contribute to better understanding of children’s pragmatic development as well as teaching and intervention practices in communication and reading comprehension.

KW - pragmatic development

KW - pragmatic inference

KW - reading comprehension

KW - reading inference

M3 - Journal article

JO - Language Development Research

JF - Language Development Research

SN - 2771-7976

ER -