Not early, not late, but developing: Children's “good-enough” understanding of metaphors

To date, the debate over the age at which children begin to understand metaphors remains unresolved. Do children begin to acquire comprehension early, around age 3 to 4, or later, around age 8? One way to answer this question is to use the notion of "good-enough" comprehension proposed by Ferreira et al. (2002) and to hypothesize that young children understand metaphors in a “good enough” manner while older children understand them in a more precise and accurate manner. This hypothesis was tested using a task where children were asked to assess the extent to which more or less precise and relevant rephrasings resembled nominal metaphors. We therefore sought to (1) differentiate between "good-enough" and "good" (precise and accurate) understanding in school-age children and (2) show that the former appears earlier than the latter during development. Data collected from 300 children aged 5 to 11 suggest that both goals were reached. These results suggest that, while metaphorical abilities emerge early, comprehension processes then evolve during childhood, with a refinement of understanding between 7 and 9 years old. These results may open a path to reconcile the proponents of early acquisition with those of later acquisition.