Language and Social Disadvantage: Theory into Practice - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470019751 ISBN 13: 9780470019757

Verlag: Wiley, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Language and Social Disadvantage critically analyses and reviews the development of language in direct relation to social disadvantage in the early years and beyond. Definitions and descriptions of social disadvantage are addressed and wider aspects discussed. Theory and practice in relation to language development and social disadvantage are explored.

The book is divided into two sections: the first addresses the theoretical associations and relationships between social disadvantage and language, where cognition, literacy, behaviour, learning, socio-emotional development, intervention and outcomes are considered in depth. The second section applies the theory to practice, where real-life intervention studies in nurseries, schools and other contexts are reported. Research and practice based in the UK is a focus of all the chapters and research reports.

A genuinely interdisciplinary and collaborative approach is taken using perspectives from speech and language therapy, psychology and education. The book is ideal for professionals and students interested in the study of language development and intervention in the context of social disadvantage.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Judy Clegg is a member of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and is Lecturer, Human Communication Sciences, University of Sheffield, UK.

Jane Ginsborg is a Chartered Psychologist and is Research Fellow, the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Language and Social Disadvantage critically analyses and reviews the development of language in direct relation to social disadvantage in the early years and beyond. Definitions and descriptions of social disadvantage are addressed and wider aspects discussed. Theory and practice in relation to language development and social disadvantage are explored.

The book is divided into two sections: the first addresses the theoretical associations and relationships between social disadvantage and language, where cognition, literacy, behaviour, learning, socio-emotional development, intervention and outcomes are considered in depth. The second section applies the theory to practice, where real-life intervention studies in nurseries, schools and other contexts are reported. Research and practice based in the UK is a focus of all the chapters and research reports.

A genuinely interdisciplinary and collaborative approach is taken using perspectives from speech and language therapy, psychology and education. The book is ideal for professionals and students interested in the study of language development and intervention in the context of social disadvantage.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Language and Social Disadvantage

Theory into Practice

John Wiley & Sons

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-470-01975-7

Chapter One

The Effects of Socio-economic Status on Children's Language Acquisition and Use

JANE GINSBORG Royal Northern College of Music

INTRODUCTION

OUTLINE OF CHAPTER

In the first part of this chapter, social disadvantage is defined in terms of socio-economic status (SES). Evidence that children from low-SES backgrounds are more likely to experience language delay than children from high-SES backgrounds will be presented. Environmental explanations, suggesting that children from high- and low-SES backgrounds experience different kinds of language environment, which influence both the rate of language acquisition and language competence on starting school, will be discussed. The second part of the chapter considers the extent to which the differences that have been found represent deficits. Given the importance of oracy and literacy in education, and the links between them, it is clear that children from low-SES backgrounds are more likely to be disadvantaged academically than those from high-SES backgrounds, thus renewing the cycle of social disadvantage.

DEFINITIONS OF SOCIAL DISADVANTAGE

Social disadvantage is defined in a number of ways. Research into the association between social disadvantage and developmental outcomes frequently measures SES in terms of level of parental education (usually maternal), or occupation (usually parental) (e.g. Bee, Van Egeren, Streissguth, Nyman & Leckie, 1969; Bernstein, 1962a, 1962b; Hart & Risley, 1995; Tizard & Hughes, 1984; Tough, 1977). Alternatively, social disadvantage is represented by economic deprivation: for example, low family income (Adams & Ramey, 1980), poverty (e.g. Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, & Duncan, 1996; Patterson, Kupersmidt & Vaden, 1990), or income-to-needs ratio (Raviv, Kessenich & Morrison, 2004). Defining social disadvantage in different ways is problematic. Correlations found between parental education and occupation, and measures of income, are not high; the duration and timing of poverty varies from one family to another, and has different effects on developmental outcomes; even if the family itself is not economically-deprived, living in a poor neighbourhood can affect development (Duncan, Brooks-Gunn & Klebanov, 1994). In recent years, researchers have attempted to distinguish between poverty status and SES (see McLoyd, 1998, for a review). In this chapter, however, I define social disadvantage, generally, as 'low SES'.

EVIDENCE FOR DIFFERENCES IN THE LANGUAGE COMPETENCE

There has long been concern that children from low-SES backgrounds underachieve academically in comparison with more privileged children. Academic underachievement has often been attributed to language skills inadequate for accessing the curriculum. Early evidence for differences in the language competence of children from high- and low-SES backgrounds was proposed in the UK by Bernstein (e.g. 1958, 1962a, 1962b, 1973), Tough (1977, 2000) and Tizard and Hughes (1984); in the USA (where low SES is often associated with minority ethnic background), similar evidence was put forward by Bereiter and Engelmann (1966), Stewart (1970), Baratz (1970) and Labov (1969) More recently, the results of a large-scale longitudinal, observational study of the development of spoken language in young children from high-, mid- and low-SES backgrounds (Hart & Risley, 1995, 1999; Walker, Greenwood, Hart & Carta, 1994) suggest that children in lower-SES environments have slower rates of vocabulary growth associated with lower IQ when they are three years old, and poorer educational achievement when they are nine or ten. Similar studies have confirmed these findings (Arriaga, Fenson, Cronan & Pethick, 1998; Fish & Pinkerman, 2003; Hoff, 2003). Peers, Lloyd, and Foster (2000) carried out a survey of children's language skills as part of the standardization process for the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool ([CELF-Preschool.sup.UK]). This suggested that UK children from low-SES backgrounds are almost twice as likely to experience receptive language delay than children from mid- and high-SES backgrounds; moderate or severe expressive language delay is more than five times as likely in children from low-SES backgrounds.

In this chapter, I will be focusing on environmental explanations for the differences in language competence and use that have been observed in children from different backgrounds. I will attempt to consider in turn - given the high correlations between these factors - the effects of low SES, generally, on cognitive and language development; the level of parental education; home environment; the relationship between principal caregiver and child; the nature of the interaction between mother and child, including the quantity of speech addressed to the child and the nature of the child-directed speech, and the language environment experienced by the child, more generally.

ENVIRONMENTAL EXPLANATIONS FOR DIFFERENCES IN LANGUAGE COMPETENCE

THE EFFECTS OF POVERTY ON COGNITIVE AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Poverty affects children psychologically (see Bradley & Corwyn, 2002, for a review). It can also affect them psychosocially and physically (Brooks-Gunn, et al., 1996; Evans, 2004). For example, family income is a better predictor of non-verbal and verbal IQ measured at five years of age than ethnicity, maternal education and single motherhood (Duncan et al., 1994). In terms of the physical effects of poverty, poor health - particularly in the perinatal period for infants who were born prematurely (Siegel, 1982) - and nutrition (Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997) can give rise to physiological or neurological deficits, as can exposure to environmental pollutants (Klebanov, Brooks-Gunn, McCarton & McCormick, 1998; McLoyd, 1998; Needleman, Schell, Bellinger, Leviton & Allred, 1990).

LEVEL OF MATERNAL EDUCATION

Even though, as we have seen, family income has been shown to be a more effective predictor of developmental outcomes than maternal education, it has been argued that it is worth studying the relationship between maternal education and cognitive development simply because it is a more stable measure than family poverty (Duncan et al., 1994; Huston, McLoyd & Garcia Coll, 1994). It is usually correlated with paternal education (Entwisle & Astone, 1994) and many low-income families are headed by single parents, usually the mother (Hernandez, 1997). Adams and Ramey (1980), for example, undertook a longitudinal study of low-SES infants at risk of 'mild mental retardation'. The higher the level of risk, the lower the level of maternal education and IQ.

Why should this be? Belsky (1984) and Wells (1986) take an ecological approach, suggesting that parenting is influenced by parents' own personality and developmental history as well as the child's temperament. Such an emphasis on the wider social context of the family is supported by Parks and Smeriglio (1986), who link parental education to knowledge about parenting, child development and the level of stimulation provided in the home, where such factors influence children's cognitive development. While some aspects of language development, such as the appropriate use of tense, seem to be acquired irrespective of level of maternal education (Rice, Wexler & Hershberger, 1998), others have been shown to be related to maternal education. Dollaghan, Campbell, Paradise et al. (1999) studied interactions between mothers and their infants. The mothers were categorised as black or white, with one of four levels of education, from college graduates to those who had not graduated from high school. The researchers found significant correlations between level of maternal education and 3-year-old children's receptive and productive language. Measures of productive language included mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLUm) (Walker et al., 1994), number of different words and total number of words. Analysis showed that there were significant differences between the three groups on all the measures, such that the children of college graduates had higher scores than both the other groups, and for receptive language, the children of high-school graduates had higher scores than the children whose mothers had not graduated from high school.

Finally, in a recent investigation of risk factors underlying speech delay in 3-year-old children, Campbell, Dollaghan, Rockette, et al. (2003) calculated the odds ratios for seven variables thought to be linked to speech delay. The highest risk factors were the mother not having completed high school and the child being male; odds ratios were high, too, for a family history of developmental communication disorder and Medicaid health insurance (representing low SES, but highly correlated with low level of maternal education).

HOME ENVIRONMENT

As we have seen, the home environment is very important for developmental outcomes (Belsky, 1984; Bradley & Caldwell, 1984; Brooks-Gunn et al., 1996; Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman & Hemphill, 1991). However, the kind of home environment experienced by children is not necessarily affected by SES. Olson, Bates and Kaskie (1992) measured interactions between mothers from different SES backgrounds and their children, when the children were 6, 13, and 24 months old, and then followed them up when they were 6 years old. The results suggest that - over and above the effects of SES - differences in language competence at the age of 6 years were attributable to two aspects of mother-child interaction at the age of 2 years: the mother's non-restrictiveness of the child, and the amount of verbal stimulation she provided.

On the other hand, a potential link between SES, home environment and language is illustrated in a study carried out by Lawrence and Shipley (1996), who examined black working- and middle-class, and white working- and middle-class parents' use of language with their 3-5-year-old children. Differences between the language used by parents in the four groups were discovered. Given that the black parents differed from the white parents in the same way that working-class parents differed from middle-class parents, the researchers postulate a single underlying factor: 'distance from mainstream culture' (Labov & Harris, 1986).

NATURE OF INTERACTION BETWEEN MOTHER AND CHILD

'Interactional style' was identified long ago as a predictor of children's cognitive development (Bee et al., 1969; Hess & Shipman, 1967). Interactional style comprises factors such as attachment, the child's temperament and quality of interaction (Fish & Pinkerman, 2003; Murray & Hornbaker, 1997); it can predict childhood language skills (Bee, Barnard, Eyres et al., 1982). Other features of interaction that are considered to facilitate language acquisition include joint attention (Harris, Jones, Brookes & Grant, 1986; Tomasello & Todd, 1983) and mothers' verbal responsiveness to early infant vocalisations (Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, Baumwell & Damast, 1996).

Given that features of mother-child interaction can differ, does this have implications for the interaction of mothers and children from high- and low-SES backgrounds? Low-SES mothers may have less time or energy for playing or engaging in conversation with their children (Farran & Haskins, 1980; Snow, Dubber & de Blauw, 1982), display more restrictive and authoritarian parenting (Hashima & Amato, 1994) and talk less to their children, using a more directive than facilitative manner (Hoff, 2003).

There is thus much evidence to show that the nature of mother-child interaction plays a part in language development. However, the crucial aspects of mother-child interaction have yet to be identified. While in some cases interactional differences have been attributed to SES, other studies have shown that effective mother-child interaction can enhance the language skills of low-SES children. We turn now to examine children's language environments more closely in an attempt to explain differences in the language competence and use of children from high- and low-SES backgrounds, starting with evidence that the sheer quantity of speech addressed to children has a vital role to play (Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer & Lyons, 1991).

QUANTITY OF CHILD-DIRECTED SPEECH

Hoff and Naigles (2002), in their review of the literature pertaining to children's lexical development, point out that there are two views of language input. The social-pragmatic view focuses on the interaction between caregiver and child. The alternative view, put forward by Hoff and Naigles, is 'that language acquisition is a data-crunching process and conversation is a delivery mechanism whose value lies, to a substantial degree, in the nature of the data that it delivers' (p. 422). Hoff and Naigles cite Schwartz and Terrell (1983) and Smith (1999), who showed empirically that words are learned faster by children the more often they are heard. Thus, the words that children produce first when they begin to speak are likely to be those that their parents say most often (Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998). Bornstein, Haynes and Painter (1998) showed that the size of children's comprehension and production vocabularies was related to the number of word types used by their mothers when talking to them as well as their MLU. Vocabulary size is not the only measure of language competence, of course: Hoff-Ginsberg (1997; 1998) investigated the effects of birth order as well as SES on the development of syntactic skills and argued that firstborns develop the ability to understand and use syntax faster than do their younger siblings because more speech is addressed to them.

Meanwhile, the findings of Hart and Risley (1992, 1995, 1999), who carried out a longitudinal, naturalistic, observational study of 42 children and their families, illustrate SES-related differences in the quantity of language to which young children are exposed, and their potential long-term consequences. Thirteen families were defined as 'professional/managerial'; 23 were defined as working class (equivalent to 'blue-collar workers' in the UK), and six were living on welfare benefits (equivalent, arguably, to 'working-class' in the UK). Each family was visited once a month, from when the child was 8 months old until their third birthday, and everything that was said to the child, by the child or around the child, for an hour, was documented. At the end of the study each child's vocabulary growth rate, use of vocabulary and IQ were measured. When the children were 9-10 years old, a follow-up study was carried out, involving 29 of the 42 children.

The most striking differences in the language experiences of children in the three types of family related to utterances - measured as the average numbers of words per hour - that were addressed to them. A total of 600 words per hour were addressed to children in the welfare families, 1200 in the working-class families and 2100 in the professional families. In terms of time spent interacting with their children, adults in the professional families spent twice as long as the adults in the welfare families. However, there were differences in the nature of the language used, too. The average numbers of adult utterances per hour representing affirmative feedback and prohibitions to their children were calculated for each group. In professional families affirmative feedback was offered more than 30 times. In working-class families, affirmative feedback was offered 15 times. However, in welfare families, affirmative feedback was offered only six times per hour, and children were twice as likely to hear a prohibition.

As might be expected, the children's vocabulary growth rate and use were reflected by the amount of language they had experienced; so were their IQ scores. There were also significant positive correlations between their test performance on the vocabulary measures at the age of 3 years and at the age of 9-10. Hart and Risley conclude that 'the most important difference among families was not the relative advantages conferred by education and income but the amount of talking the parents did with their children' (1999, p. 181).

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Language and Social Disadvantage Copyright © 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Wiley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0470019751
• ISBN 13: 9780470019757
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Sprache: Englisch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Herausgeber: Clegg Judy
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar