Special Education ETDs

Publication Date

4-10-1972

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the nature and extent of language stimulation provided at home by mothers of four preschool age, disadvantaged Mexican-American children. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine whether mothers of this sample of children could use verbal expansions to stimulate their children's language development. Specifically, the study attempted to obtain information relative to the following questions:

1. Is language retardation evident at an early age?

2. Do mothers provide verbal feedback for their children's verbal utterances?

3. Does a mother's attitude toward child rearing influence the nature of language stimulation provided to the child?

4. How frequently do mothers utilize feedback in the form of verbal expansions?

5. Can mothers familiarized with the process of expansions utilize the training to stimulate their children's language development, as evidenced by an increase in maternal expansions after training?

6. Do children whose mothers utilize expansion a high percentage of the time demonstrate more language growth than children who receive little feedback in the form of expansion?

Six children, ranging in age from 23-32 months, were assigned to one of three treatment groups. Four of the children were from impoverished environments and were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control male-female group. Two children were from a middle class environment and comprised the comparison group. One welfare group's (Expansion) parents received training in the process of expanding their children's utterances. Another welfare group's (Control) parents received no training in the process of expanding their children's utterances. The third group (Comparison) received no special treatment. The comparison children were pre- and post-tested with selected instruments along with the four welfare children. Two objective tests, the revised edition of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), and two language evaluation scales were used to determine the children's language proficiency. In addition, the Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) was used to determine the attitudes of the mothers toward child rearing. Training for the parents of the Expansion group extended over a one week period. All six children were pre- and post-tested. In addition, mothers of the Expansion and Control groups made two half-hour recordings per week. The welfare children's spontaneous recordings were analyzed during the 1st, 4th, 8th, and 12th weeks to determine their progress in language development and the effect of the experimental treatment. On the basis of the results it does appear that language retardation as evidenced by depressed mean length of response and the children's protocols can be detected as early as two years of age. On each of the language measures used in the study, with the exception of the ITPA and PPVT, two of the children were clearly behind their peers in language development. This delay was evident when the children were compared to their peers as well as norms established on other populations of children. A slight superiority of the middle class children over the disadvantaged children was also found. This finding was questioned however because of the following factors: 1) questionable applicability of the tests with Mexican­American children in this age range (23-32 months), and 2) problems encountered in the testing situation. The results were unclear with regards to the second question. The four welfare mothers did respond to their children's utterances; however, the differentiating factor appeared to be the length of the mother's response. Two children's mothers were arbitrarily classified as the most talkative mothers, and their children were more advanced in language development than the children of the nonverbal mothers. This finding is only tentative, however, and is based strictly on the observations of the investigator, and subjective judgments made after listening to the mother-child dialogues obtained in the home. The answer to the third question was not obtained in the present study. This was due to problems of interpretation of the mother's responses to the PARI. Lack of norms for this instrument and problems of definition and delimitation of Parental Attitudes were among the major barriers encountered in the analysis of these results. The four welfare mothers used verbal expansions an average of 13 percent of the time during the baseline period. The average expansion rate for the entire twelve weeks was 14 percent. These figures are low in comparison to that reported in other studies; however, they were computed using criteria established for the purposes of this study. There are no strict guidelines for classification of a response as an expansion, and therefore interstudy comparisons were difficult to make. The two mothers in the Expansion group maintained higher expansion rates throughout the study when compared to the Control mothers. However, the two Expansion mothers had a slightly higher expansion rate during the baseline period. The effects of treatment were unclear because of the fluctuating rate of expanded speech among the mothers throughout the study. Further, it was not clear whether mothers who utilize expansion a high percentage of the time have children who demonstrate more language growth than children who receive little feedback of this nature. The results, tentative as they must be because of the small sample and difficulties encountered throughout the study, have implications for future research in children's acquisition of language.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Special Education

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Special Education

First Committee Member (Chair)

Louis Alexander Bransford

Second Committee Member

Dolores Smith Butt

Third Committee Member

Marian Newman Works

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