Associations Between Syntactic Comprehension and Cognitive and Language Measures

The term syntax originates from the Greek words syn (“together”) and taxis (“arrangement”). Syntactic comprehension refers to the ability to understand how words are arranged in sentences, particularly when changes in word order alter meaning. For example, the sentences “The cat is on the mat” and “The mat is on the cat” contain the same words but convey different meanings. Syntactic comprehension difficulties are frequently observed in individuals with attention-deficit disorders and intellectual disabilities, and several standardized assessments are available to measure their language and cognitive abilities. However, an important question remains unanswered: how do these standardized scores relate to syntactic comprehension specifically? To address this question, we operationalized syntactic comprehension using sentences containing the spatial prepositions on and under presented in both canonical and non-canonical word orders; the Spatial Preposition Test (SPT). We then examined the relationship between SPT performance and standardized IQ and language measures. We observed moderate correlations (r = 0.34-0.60), indicating that although syntactic comprehension is similarly related to IQ, receptive language, and expressive language scores, these associations are modest. This suggests that syntactic comprehension represents a distinct ability that is not precisely captured by standard IQ or language assessments.