This study compared comprehension of idioms in 66 children comprising 3 groups: normal 9 year olds, 9-year-old children with mild mental retardation, and younger normal children matched with the retarded children for receptive vocabulary age. Although the normal nine year olds comprehended the most idioms, the mentally retarded children performed…

Four nine year olds with mild mental retardation received training on the meaning of idiomatic phrases. All children demonstrated learning and an ability to understand the learned idioms when presented in unfamiliar contexts. Children were able to generalize their receptive learning to an expressive task with varying levels of success. (Author/JDD)