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 studies that test whether individual differences in pragmatic skill are associated with formal language ability, mentalizing, and executive functions in both typical and aty...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language learning and development 2018-07, Vol.14 (3), p.186-223
Main Authors: Matthews, Danielle, Biney, Hannah, Abbot-Smith, Kirsten
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autism
Children
Communication Skills
Correlation
Diagnostic Tests
Executive Function
Figurative Language
Individual Differences
Information Processing
Interpersonal Communication
Irony
Language Aptitude
Language Skills
Language thought relationship
Language Usage
Literature Reviews
Measures (Individuals)
Native language acquisition
Observation
Pervasive Developmental Disorders
Pragmatics
Semiotics
Skills
Social Cognition
Social perception
Story Telling
Theory of Mind
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Summary:Children vary in their ability to use language in social contexts and this has important consequences for wellbeing. We review studies that test whether individual differences in pragmatic skill are associated with formal language ability, mentalizing, 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 mentalizing 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 six 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; and (6) employing statistical tools that model the nested structure of pragmatics and cognition.
ISSN:1547-5441
1547-3341
DOI:10.1080/15475441.2018.1455584