Does socioeconomic level have an effect on school-age language skills in a developed country?
Date
2016
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch University, Department of General Linguistics
Abstract
Socioeconomic status (SES) has been reported in several contexts as a predictor of child language skills. This study questions whether this holds true for New Zealand, a developed country in which government provides funding for additional academic support to low-SES schoolchildren. The language of 67 typically-developing, English-speaking 5- to 7-year-olds (40 high SES, 27 low SES) was assessed using two normed instruments (the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Australian) (Dunn and Dunn 2007) and the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (Australian) (Semel, Wiig and Secord 2006)) and one unnormed instrument (the Receptive and Expressive Activities for Language Therapy; Southwood and Van Dulm 2012). Although the low-SES group had significantly lower scores than the high-SES group on the two normed instruments, all participants’ scores were within the expected age norms on these instruments. The low-SES group had significantly lower scores on the Receptive and Expressive Activities for Language Therapy for comprehension of articles, binding relations, passive constructions and wh questions, and for production of passives and conjunctions. The language of young New Zealand schoolchildren thus appears similarly vulnerable to SES effects as those of children elsewhere. The question arises as to what can be done to allow these children to develop the language skills that will allow them to function optimally in the school context.
Description
CITATION: Van Dulm, O. & Southwood, F. 2016. Does socioeconomic level have an effect on school-age language skills in a developed country?. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 49:59-84, doi:10.5842/49-0-667.
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za
The original publication is available at http://spilplus.journals.ac.za
Keywords
Socioeconomic status, English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Children, Communication skills (Elementary education) -- Children, SES, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Intelligence tests, Psychological tests for children, Vocabulary tests, Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Receptive and Expressive Activities for Language Therapy, Developed countries -- New Zealand, Expressive communication skills
Citation
Van Dulm, O. & Southwood, F. 2016. Does socioeconomic level have an effect on school-age language skills in a developed country?. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus, 49:59-84, doi:10.5842/49-0-667