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Language and social behaviour in severely educationally subnormal children
The British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology
|February 1, 1978
Summary
As children age, they initiate more social interactions, particularly verbal ones with peers. This finding supports using observational methods to assess language development in children.
Area of Science:
- Child Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Language Acquisition
Background:
- Social interaction is crucial for child development.
- Understanding the progression of social communication skills is essential for assessing language abilities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the relationship between age and the initiation of social interactions in a classroom setting.
- To identify changes in verbal and non-verbal interaction patterns with increasing age.
- To support the use of observational techniques for language assessment.
Main Methods:
- Observational study during classroom free-play periods.
- Data collection focused on the initiation of child-child and child-teacher interactions.
- Categorization of interactions into verbal and non-verbal types.
Main Results:
- A strong positive correlation was found between age and the number of initiated social interactions.
- Verbally initiated child-child interactions showed the most significant increase with age.
- Verbally initiated child-teacher interactions also increased with age, but to a lesser extent.
- No significant age-related changes were observed in non-verbal interaction initiations.
Conclusions:
- Age is a significant factor in the development of social interaction initiation skills.
- Observational methods are valuable for assessing productive language skills, especially in populations like mentally handicapped school children.
- The findings highlight the growing importance of verbal communication in peer interactions as children mature.