Preschoolers’ listening comprehension development in conjunction with their cognitive development: a meta-analysis of previous research

Abstract

Abstract. This article presents a meta-analysis of previous research involving the preschoolers’ listening comprehension development viewed in conjunction with their cognitive development. The meta-analysis involves research findings in the field of psycholinguistics published in Eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union between 1940s and 2010s. The findings of the meta-analysis indicate that listening comprehension is regarded as a complex form of speech activity, which involves i) auditory perception of the language codes and forms (lexical and grammatical structures – words, phrases, sentences, statements); ii) recognition and storage of the aforementioned language codes in short-term and long-term memory respectively; iii) comprehension of the verbal message in the internal speech, which is subsequently decoded in deep mental representations. The results of the meta-analysis suggest that there is a complex interrelation between the preschoolers’ listening comprehension and their cognitive development.