Individual differences in children’s pragmatic ability: a review of associations with formal language, social cognition and executive functions

Children vary in their ability to use language in social contexts and this has

important consequences for wellbeing. We review over 50 studies that tested

whether individual differences in pragmatic skill are associated with formal

language ability, mentalising and executive functions in both typical and atypical

development. The strongest and most consistent associations found were

between pragmatic and formal language. Additional associations with mentalising

were observed, particularly with discourse contingency and irony understanding.

Fewer studies considered executive function and evidence is mixed. To make

progress, high-quality studies of specific pragmatic skills are needed to test

mechanistic models of development. We propose 6 goals for future research: 1)

developing an empirically-based taxonomy of pragmatic skills; 2) establishing

which skills matter most for everyday functioning; 3) testing specific hypotheses

about information processing; 4) augmenting measures of individual differences;

5) considering a broader set of psychological associates; 6) employing statistical

tools that model the nested structure of pragmatics and cognition.