Facilitating children's understanding of questions through pictures: implications for social class language differences

Abstract

The effects of pictorialization on low-and middle-social class (SES) children's comprehension of wh-questions was examined. Sixty middleand 60 low-SES children, aged 3;6 to 5;2, were asked to respond to six types of wh-questions in two stimulus conditions. The pictures in Stimulus I contained information to answer more than one wh -question. The pictures in Stimulus II contained information to answer only one wh -question. Both SES groups answered significantly more questions in Stimulus II. Examination of simple effects indicated that middle-SES children benefited from pictorial support on comprehending the later developed wh-words representing abstract linguistic constructs ( why, how, when ) while low-SES children benefited on comprehending early acquired wh-words ( who, what, where ) . In a recent study by Gullo (1981) social class (SES) differences in pre-school children's comprehension of wh-questions were examined. Results of this study indicated that SES differences in question comprehension varied according to which wh-word was the target word. For wh-words which are acquired early (what, who, where) and whose referents are observable objects easily identifiable in pictures, SES differences were nonsignificant. For later acquired wh-words (why, when, how) which represent the abstract constructs of cause-effect, time, and manner respectively, SES differences were pronounced, with middle-SES children comprehending significantly more of these types of questions than the low-SES children. Earlier studies of whquestion comprehension indicate that children's abilities to comprehend whDownloaded from 122 words are developmentally sequenced with those wh-words representing concrete referents acquired first and those representing abstract referents later (Cairns & Hsu 1978, Ervin-Tripp 1970, Tyack & Ingram 1977. Further, research on SES differences in language use indicates that middle-SES children use language more than low-SES children to analyse and to reason about past or present experiences, to project beyond present experiences to future events, and to talk about alternative courses and subsequent consequences (Bernstein 1962, Blank, Rose & Berlin 1978, Tough 1977. Therefore, Gullo concluded that SES differences in question comprehension could be attributed to developmental differences between the SES groups reflected in language use.The purpose of the present study was to vary the amount of information presented in the stimuli in order to determine whether or not the amount of salient information contained therein affected children's ability to comprehend wh-questions, thus extending the findings of the earlier study (Gullo 1981).Two levels of stimulus condition were used in this study. One stimulus condition presented the subjects with pictures designed such that more than one type of wh-question could be answered from the information presented (Multiple Option Stimulus Condition). This was the same as the stimulus condition used in the earlier Gullo (1981) study. A second stimulus condition was used in ...

The development of interrogative forms and functions in early childhood Cantonese

“…However, young children usually also spend a large portion of their day in other settings interacting with other adults and peers. The third concern is about socio-economic status (SES) differences found to impact on question acquisition (Gullo, 1982a(Gullo, , 1982b. The fourth concern relates to gender differences.…”

Predicting the development of interrogative forms and functions in early years: a corpus-based study of Mandarin-speaking young children

“…Family socioeconomic status (SES) has been identified as one of these factors (Hart & Risley, 1992, 1995; McLoyd, 1998). Home language input such as parental support has been found to be another predictor of young children's acquisition of wh- questions (Gullo, 1982a, 1982b). Other factors such as a supportive home environment with rich reading resources, parent–child shared reading, and maternal book-reading strategies can also make a great contribution to early language development (DeJong & Leseman, 2001; Haden, Reese & Fivush, 1996; Roberts, Jurgens & Burchinal, 2005).…”