Comprehension and Inference: Relationships Between Oral and Written Modalities in Good and Poor Comprehenders During Adolescence

Abstract

Purpose We investigated the relationships between text reading comprehension and oral idiom comprehension in adolescents. We also examined the more specific relationships between inference in text comprehension and inference in idiom comprehension. Method We selected participants from an initial sample of 140 students aged 13–15 years to form 2 groups, according to their decoding and reading comprehension abilities: 1 group of good comprehenders/good decoders ( n = 49) and 1 group of less skilled comprehenders but with adequate decoding skills ( n = 20). The reading comprehension task comprised both literal and inferential (text-based and knowledge-based) questions. These 2 groups were then compared on an idiom comprehension task. In this task, idioms were presented orally, and students were placed in a situation that simulated a real-life oral interaction. The idioms were novel for the students (translated from a foreign language), either transparent or opaque, and presented either with a supportive context or without any context. Results Good reading comprehenders outperformed less skilled ones on the idiom task. Both groups benefited from the supportive context, especially the good comprehenders. Knowledge-based inferences in written text comprehension were related to contextual inferences for opaque idioms, while semantic inferences for transparent idioms were related to literal text comprehension, but not to text-connecting inferences. Conclusion These results are discussed both theoretically, in terms of cross-modal comprehension processes, and practically, in terms of implications for remediation.