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.

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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.

Aus dem Klappentext

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.

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Language and Social Disadvantage

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

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...