A longitudinal study on listening text comprehension and receptive vocabulary in preschoolers

Abstract : The current study adopted a longitudinal design to analyze the causal connection between listening text comprehension and receptive vocabulary in pre-schoolers. Verbal intelligence and working memory were considered as possible mediators. One-hundred and fifty-two children were tested at two time points at a distance of 7-8 months (mean age = 4 ;10 years, SD = 7 months at Time 1 ; mean age = 5 ;5 years, SD = 7 months at Time 2). Children were administered tasks to evaluate listening text comprehension and receptive vocabulary at both time points, and tests for the evaluation of verbal intelligence and verbal working memory at Time 1. Results showed that : (a) receptive vocabulary has a direct causal effect on listening text comprehension, which is not entirely intertwined with that of verbal intelligence ; (b) listening text comprehension affects the development of receptive vocabulary only indirectly, namely through verbal intelligence. Implications for understanding the developmental pattern of the relation between text comprehension and vocabulary were discussed