Understanding оf Grammatical Constructions and Story Creation in First-, Secondаnd Third-Graders
The aim of the study was to analyze the understanding of reversible active and passive grammatical constructions (GCs) in first-, second- and third-graders in comparison with prepositional and instrumental GCs, as well as picture-based story creation. Two hundred forty-nine children underwent a test of understanding GCs and neuropsychological assessment and were divided into 3 groups through clustering. Group 1 possibly relied on word order (“the first name is Agent”), understanding active direct and passive reverse GCs well, but passive direct ones poorly. Group 2 understood passive reverse GCs in the worst way, possibly relying on case endings. Group 3 was successful in all GCs flexibly using different strategies. Groups differed in both response time and neuropsychological characteristics improving from Groups 1 to 3. The comparison of understanding passive/active GCs to reversible (prepositional and instrumental) and irreversible ones demonstrated correlations of their mean productivity and response time. The analysis of associations between word order and understanding prepositional and instrumental GCs showed better and faster understanding of GCs with the word order corresponding to the action order in sensorimotor stereotypes with most children. We hypothesize that the influence of sensorimotor stereotypes is a phenomenon of embodied cognition in syntax, typical for the majority of children of all groups, while usage of the rule “the first name is Agent” by Group 1 is a phenomenon of semantic syntax rooted in embedded cognition. To conclude, we revealed a general tendency toward consistency between neuropsychological status, school performance, understanding GCs, and stories creation.