On the Relation Between Procedural Learning and Syntactic Proficiency in Gifted Children

Gifted children are described as very talented children who achieve more than their age mates in one or more domains (Steiner and Carr in Educ Psychol Rev 15(3):215–246, 2003 ). These children potentially share a cognitive advantage enabling them to excel in language, but also in other domains. In t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of psycholinguistic research 2019-04, Vol.48 (2), p.417-429
Main Authors: Spit, Sybren, Rispens, Judith
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academically Gifted
Adolescents
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Children
Cognitive Psychology
Comprehension
Correlation
Gifted
Gifted children
Language Aptitude
Language Processing
Language Proficiency
Learning
Memory
Metalinguistics
Phrase Structure
Psycholinguistics
Psychology
Reaction Time
Relative clauses
Serial Ordering
Social Environment
Syntactic complexity
Syntax
Talent
Task Analysis
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Summary:Gifted children are described as very talented children who achieve more than their age mates in one or more domains (Steiner and Carr in Educ Psychol Rev 15(3):215–246, 2003 ). These children potentially share a cognitive advantage enabling them to excel in language, but also in other domains. In the present study we explored whether gifted children have a relatively advanced procedural memory. We further investigated the relation between procedural memory and complex syntactic comprehension. 25 gifted children and as many non-gifted children between ages 8 and 13 were administered a serial reaction time (SRT) task and a relative clause comprehension task. Results from the SRT task showed no significant difference between gifted children and their TD peers, whereas gifted children showed significant better comprehension of object relative clauses. No significant correlations were found between the two tasks. There was thus no evidence that gifted children excel in procedural memory. Possibly some other factor, such as meta-linguistic knowledge or a beneficial social environment, contributed to their advanced linguistic comprehension.
ISSN:0090-6905
1573-6555
DOI:10.1007/s10936-018-9611-6