Before and after

[Lois Bloom]

Hi Kathy--  The study that Brian refers to is:

Bloom, L., Lahey, M., Hood, L., Lifter, K., & Fiess, K. (1980). Complex
sentences: Acquisition of syntactic connectives and the meaning relations
they encode. Journal of Child Language, 7, 235-261. Reprinted in S. Barten
& M. Franklin (Eds.) (1988). Child Language, A Reader (pp. 89-105). New
York: Oxford University Press.  Also in Bloom, L. (1991). Language
development from two to three. New York: Cambridge University Press.

This study began at about 2 years and continued to about 3 years, and we
found no uses of "before" and "after" as clausal connectives (as Brian
also reported from his search of the Peter data).

I do remember the following study, with a title that now seems more
provocative than it once did:

Amidon, A.,& Carey, P. (1972). Why five-year-olds cannot understand before
and after. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 417-423.

And it seems to me that there were follow-up studies to that one, but I
don't have a record of them.

Hope this is helpful, all best-- Lois


On Sat, 18 Oct 2003, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek wrote:

> One of my colleagues asked me a question I could not answer.  Could you
> please refer me to any research on the production and comprehension of
> "before" and "after."  At what age do we see comprehension of these terms?
> At what age production and is there any way to elicit the terms without
> being formulaic?  Thanks in advance for your response. Kathy
>
>