Fostering symbolic interpretation during adolescence

Although by 11 years children demonstrate impressive performance on various tasks that assess symbolic thinking in language development, research suggests that few young adolescents demonstrate evidence of symbolic processing when reading literature. This study investigated whether the difficulty might be due to a lack of adequate exposure to domain-specific knowledge. Students in the experimental groups in three age groups — preadolescence, middle adolescence and later adolescence — received concrete scaffolds designed to foster domain-specific knowledge of the symbolic process. A comparison of the experimental and control groups showed that students at all three ages who had experienced the scaffolds demonstrated significantly greater symbolic interpretation. Furthermore, despite concerns that the scaffolds might dampen the readers' personal response, the experimental groups at all three ages provided significantly higher enjoyment ratings of the test poems.

► We investigated adolescents' poor performance in symbolic interpretation of poetry. ► We examined whether there is a fixed developmental timetable. ► Providing domain-specific knowledge fostered symbolic thinking from ages 11 to 17. ► Results do not suggest a fixed timetable, at least from the age of 11 years. ► Enjoyment of poetry is not dampened by instruction in symbolic interpretation.