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

Matthews, Danielle, Abbot-Smith, Kirsten, Biney, Hannah (2018) Individual differences in children’s pragmatic ability: a review of associations with formal language, social cognition and executive functions. In: Social Communication Across the Lifespan, 27th-29th June 2018, Canterbury, Kent. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:70459)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided. (Contact us about this Publication)
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Abstract

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.

Item Type: Conference or workshop item (Paper)
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology > BF41 Psychology and philosophy
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Kirsten Abbot-Smith
Date Deposited: 29 Nov 2018 13:36 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Feb 2021 13:59 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/70459 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Abbot-Smith, Kirsten.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8623-0664
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
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