Inhibitory control and verb inflection in Italian preschool children

J Child Lang. 2023 Jul;50(4):1005-1021. doi: 10.1017/S0305000922000058. Epub 2022 Mar 28.

Abstract

The study investigates whether Italian verbal inflectional morphology is associated with inhibitory control skills after controlling for receptive vocabulary and verbal working memory. A sample of Italian preschoolers aged 4;0 to 6;0 was assessed using a standardized inhibitory control task tapping two different inhibitory skills (response inhibition and interference suppression), and a morphological task requiring simple and complex inflections of verbs. The hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that working memory and the interference suppression scores were significantly associated with complex inflections but not with simple inflections of the verbs.

Keywords: Italian preschoolers; inhibitory control; verb inflection.

MeSH terms

  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Inhibition, Psychological*
  • Intelligence
  • Italy
  • Language Development*
  • Language*
  • Male
  • Memory, Short-Term
  • Regression Analysis
  • Vocabulary