It is not clear from this verse if Laman and Lemuel were able to make the association between the binding of Nephi and the Liahona's failure to work. In fact, given the various possible explanations of the way the Liahona worked, it is a legitimate question to ask how they might know that it was not working. If the Liahona functioned through the spinning of the spindles and the divination therefrom, the only way they would know that the Liahona was not working was to attempt to interpret its meaning, and to have that interpretation fail.
This possible explanation of the way the Liahona would fail might account for the fact that Laman and Lemuel would not have been able to make the association between the binding of Nephi and the Liahona's failure to work. It would also explain why they took a long time to associate the binding of Nephi with their perils. If the Liahona worked by spiritual interpretation of the presented divination on the spindles, they could be taking quite a bit of time waiting to see if they had correctly interpreted or not.