Development of Proverb Comprehension in Adolescents

Abstract

This study demonstrated that proverb comprehension improves during adolescence and that growth is most apparent at two transitional points in development: when students move from late childhood into early adolescence, and again when they move from late adolescence into adulthood. It was also shown that the concreteness of the nouns contained in proverbs plays an important role in determining how easily such expressions are understood, a result which confirms previous research (Nippold & Haq, 1996). Additional findings were that proverb comprehension was positively related to performance on standardized measures of academic achievement for tenth grade students. Implications for instruction in proverb comprehension are described for use with adolescents who experience difficulty with this literate aspect of language. The procedures make use of current information concerning the manner in which typical students learn the meanings of proverbs. Activities are designed to model strategies that students can apply in other language-learning contexts as well.