Presents a developmental study of children's understanding and appreciation of figurative language. Results replicated previous findings that kindergarten children are capable of interpreting figurative language whereas appreciation appears to require increased cognitive sophistication. (JMB)

The hypothesized relationship between an individual's age, educational background, and ability to understand aspects of semantic ambiguity was investigated in this study. The 90 subjects included ten students in each of grades two, four, six, eight, and ten, as well as ten college undergraduates, ten graduate students, ten high school graduates,…

This study had two purposes: (1) to determine when children distinguish ambiguous from precise messages and when they can resolve ambiguity through additional questioning, and (2) to identify whether implicit messages were more difficult to identify than explicit ones. All children found ambiguous messages significantly more difficult to…