Developmental differences in visual and auditory processing of complex sentences

Children aged 8 through 11 (N = 250) were given a word-by-word sentence tas k in both the visual and auditory modes. The sentences included an object r elative clause, a subject relative clause, or a conjoined verb phrase. Each sentence was followed by a true-false question, testing the subject of eit her the first or second verb. Participants were also given two memory span measures: digit span and reading span. High digit span children slowed down more at the transition from the main to the relative clause than did the l ow digit span children. The findings suggest the presence of a U-shaped lea rning pattern for on-line processing of restrictive relative clauses. Off-l ine accuracy scores showed different patterns for good comprehenders and po or comprehenders. Poor comprehenders answered the second verb questions at levels that were consistently below chance. Their answers were based on an incorrect local attachment strategy that treated the second noun as the sub ject of the second verb. For example, they often answered yes to the questi on "The girl chases the policeman" after the object relative sentence "The boy that the girl sees chases the policeman." Interestingly, low memory spa n poor comprehenders used the local attachment strategy less consistently t han high memory span poor comprehenders, and all poor comprehenders used th is strategy less consistently for harder than for easier sentences.