Comparison of Patterns of Word Association among Three Grades of Nigerian School Children
79 Nigerian primary school children in Grades 1, 3, and 6 associated to 48 categorizable Yoruba nouns which were randomly presented. They all significantly produced more paradigmatic than syntagmatic responses. Grade 6 gave the most superordinate, temporally, spatially, and functionally related responses. Grade 3 produced the most connotative responses, and Grade 1 emitted the most descriptive responses.