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Children’s problems with inference making: causes and consequences

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-09, 16:33 authored by Jane OakhillJane Oakhill, Kate Cain
Understanding a text requires not only understanding the individual words and sentences, but also requires the construction of an integrated model of the text as a whole: a Mental Model (Johnson-Laird, 1983) or Situation Model (Kintsch, 1998). In the first part of this paper, we differentiate between the types of inference that occur as a reader understands a text: necessary inferences (at both the local and global level) and 'merely elaborative' inferences, which might embellish the reader's understanding, but which are not essential to it. We then go on to discuss the problems of children who have a Specific Comprehension Difficulty (i.e. they are able to read words at an age-appropriate level but, nevertheless, have a poor understanding of the text overall). We describe the particular difficulties that such children have in answering inferential questions about a text, and outline the evidence that such difficulties are causally related to comprehension skill. We then discuss the reciprocal relation between vocabulary skills and inference making. Inference skills have a clear role in helping readers to derive the meanings of unknown words from text through the use of contextual cues and, conversely, deep vocabulary knowledge (what is known about words), and rapid access to that knowledge, can support inference making.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Bulletin of Educational Psychology

ISSN

1011-5714

Publisher

National Taiwan Normal University

Issue

4

Volume

49

Page range

683-699

Department affiliated with

  • Psychology Publications

Full text available

  • No

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-01-17

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-01-16

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