Time after time: Factors influencing children's comprehension of Before and After.

We investigated older children's (7-12 years) ability to comprehend before and after sentences. Results found that three factors that influence pre-school aged children's learning of these words continues to influence older children's comprehension. Specifically, children's accuracy is improved when the events can be naturally (vs. arbitrarily) ordered; when the clauses in the sentence iconically match (vs. mismatch) the order of the events in the world; and when sentences use before (vs. after). The first two factors are argued to directly facilitate the building of mental models while the last one does so indirectly because of patterns of input usage.