The family literacy environment is reported to be an important predictor of a child's language and early literacy development. This study examined the relations between various aspects of family literacy environment and different measures of children's language, assessed in three different settings, namely in a structured test situation, at home and in preschool. The sample included 80 preschool children, randomly selected from 13 preschools, aged approximately 4 years. The quality of family literacy environment was estimated by mothers, using the Home literacy environment questionnaire. Children's language development and storytelling ability was assessed by a testator, while their spontaneous language was assessed by their mothers and preschool teachers. Family literacy environment was found to be an important factor of the child's storytelling ability and the complexity of his spontaneous language, used at home and in preschool. Maternal education proved to be associated with the quality of the family literacy environment and also related to all measures of the child's language except for maternal assessment. The findings have implications for understanding the role of family environment in the development of different aspects of a child's language and the importance of assessing the child's language in various settings thus obtaining a complete estimation of his language ability.
COBISS.SI-ID: 46015330
The present study explored gender differences in emerging language skills in 13,783 European children from 10 non-English language communities. It was based on a synthesis of published data assessed with adapted versions of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) from age 0.08 to 2.06. The results showed that girls are slightly ahead of boys in early communicative gestures, in productive vocabulary, and in combining words. The difference increased with age. Boys were not found to be more variable than girls. Despite extensive variation in language skills between language communities, the difference between girls and boys remained. This suggests that the difference is caused by robust factors that do not change between language communities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 45891426
According to the findings of several studies, parents' assessments of their toddler's language are valid and reliable evaluations of children's language competence, especially at early development stages. This study examined whether preschool teachers, who spend a relatively great deal of time with toddlers in various preschool activities and engage in diverse social interactions with them, can also validly assess their language competence. The purpose of this study was to examine the degree of agreement between parents' and preschool teachers' assessments of toddler language competence. In addition, the study sought to establish whether toddlers' gender and parental education have any significant effect on parents' and preschool teachers' assessments of toddler language competence. The sample included 140 toddlers aged 16- to 30-months-old that had attended preschool for at least one year. The parents and preschool teachers assessed toddler language competence independently using the Communicative Development Inventory for Toddlers 16 to 30 Months Old (Marjanovi-Umek et al. 2008b). The findings showed a low to moderately high correlation between parents' and preschool teachers' assessments of various areas of toddlers' language (e.g. vocabulary, mean length of utterance, and sentence complexity). Preschool teachers assessed toddler language competence lower in all areas than parents did. The results also showed that parental education and toddlers' gender had a significant and high impact on parents' assessments of their toddlers' language competence. The results obtained were interpreted from the perspective of the opportunity to include parents and preschool teachers that accompany toddlers in various social contexts in assessments of toddlers language, and from the perspective of parents' and preschool teachers' implicit theories on language development, also in connection with toddlers' gender and parental education.
COBISS.SI-ID: 45218914