Speech Characteristics as a Function of Social Class and Situational Factors

Jones, Pauline A.; McMillan, William B.

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1973.tb02121.x

Cited by 6 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Research by Jones and McMillan (1973) with 5-yearold kindergarten children found SES variations. "Across the three speech conditions, middle-class subjects paused less frequently and had a shorter mean pause duration than lower-class subjects" (p. 117).…”

Section: Saint Louis University Saint Louis Missouri 63103mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hawkins (1973) found differences in paralinguistic variables along SES boundaries for 6\-2-to 7-year-olds. He found the higher SES group used more pauses of an intermediate length as compared to those of the lower SES group.Research by Jones and McMillan (1973) with 5-yearold kindergarten children found SES variations. "Across the three speech conditions, middle-class subjects paused less frequently and had a shorter mean pause duration than lower-class subjects" (p. 117).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Pausological aspects of children’s narratives

Bassett

O’Connell

Monahan

1977

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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The present research combines developmental and socioeconomic (SES) perspectives in a study of paralinguistic aspects of children's speech. Spontaneous speech samples were obtained from 94 kindergarten and second· grade children of low-, middle-, and high-SES families in response to a nine-frame sequence of cartoon cards. Results show that low-SES kindergarten children use much longer, although fewer, unfilled pauses than do middle-or high-SES children. However, by second grade there are no longer significant SES differences, a phenomena which is mainly the result of the low-SES children readjusting their use of pause time.The present research emanates primarily from the work of Kowal, O'Connell, and Sabin (1975), who discovered a consistent developmental pattern of paralinguistic variables ranging from kindergarten through high school. "Speech rate increased steadily with age up to high school sophomores, and the acceleration was due to both frequency and length of UPs [unfilled pauses]" (p. 201).There have also been numerous studies attempting to define paralinguistic variations among socioeconomic (SES) groups. Hawkins (1973) found differences in paralinguistic variables along SES boundaries for 6\-2-to 7-year-olds. He found the higher SES group used more pauses of an intermediate length as compared to those of the lower SES group.Research by Jones and McMillan (1973) with 5-yearold kindergarten children found SES variations. "Across the three speech conditions, middle-class subjects paused less frequently and had a shorter mean pause duration than lower-class subjects" (p. 117).The present research combines developmental and SES factors in an attempt to determine their relationships and relative strengths in defining paralinguistic behavior. METHODA total of 94 kindergarten and second-grade children from St. Louis area grade schools representing three distinct SES groups were recorded. SES levels were distinguished according to the parents' occupation and area of residence. Fathers' occupations in the low-SES group were unskilled and semi-skilled laborers with 58%, or 24 , of the mothers employed either as waitresses, maids, clerical, or factory workers. The middle-SES group was composed of children whose fathers were businessmen and skilled workers, with 20%, or six, mothers in this group employed as nurses, teachers, or clerical workers. Fathers of the children in the high·SES group held executive and professional positions. Only two, or 8%, of these mothers were employed, one in teaching and the other in real estate.All children were white and spoke only English, with no apparent speech defects. The mean age of the kindergarten children was 5 years 7 months and of the second graders was 7 years 7 months. 166The groups were of unequal sizes, with the low-SES group consisting of 17 kindergarten and 24 second graders, the middle· SES group with 10 kindergarten and 20 second graders, and the high-SES group with 13 kindergarten and 10 second-grade children.Each child was recorded individually at his school. Sp...

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Section: Saint Louis University Saint Louis Missouri 63103mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pausological aspects of children’s narratives

Bassett

O’Connell

Monahan

1977

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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“…For example, lower socio-economic groups use shorter language utterances, fewer morphemes, and less complex grarrunatical structures (McCarthy, 1930;Jones and McMillan, 1973). Watson (1976) found four-year old males produced more mature language as measured by MLU as compared to females' elicitations.…”

Section: Structural Complexity Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in most studies reviewed, the examiner was an adult (McCarthy, 1930;Templin, 1957). In several recent studies, however, other children interacted with the subject (Jones and McMillan, 1973;Welkowitz, Cariffe, and Feldstein, 1976). Differences in verbal length and complexity due to the interaction with other children were not reported by these investigators.…”

Section: Structural Complexity Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

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Developmental sentence scoring : a comparative study conducted in Portland, Oregon

McCluskey¹

2000

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Conducted in Portland, Oregon. APPROVED BY MEMBERS OF THE THESIS COMMITTEE:rdon, Chairperson RO ert:H:Englis~Oral language sampling and analysis are tools available to the speech-language clinician, which are often helpful in obtaining information regarding the development of expressive language in children. In the past, a child's language has been judged to be mature based upon the length of the utterance and/or the granunatical complexity.The purpose of this investigation was to replicate the study conducted by Lee and Canter (1971) and Lee (1974a) Although slight variation in the examiner's form 3 of elicitation and use of stimulus materials may possibly explain some of the differences found in the grammatical categories, it appears an unlikely possibility that this variation could account for the statistically significant difference found between the mean DSS scores of the two studies.In addition, the differences do not appear to be the result of stimulus materials or transcription methods used.The norms compiled by Lee (1974a) in the Midwest, differ significantly from those obtained in this study, conducted in Portland, Oregon. It appears likely that score differences in other geographical areas may exist as well.In order to conduct a thorough and competent evaluation of a child's expressive language abilities, the data from this investigation reflect the need for the speech-language clinician to use the DSS norms cautiously and/or to establish norms specific to a geographical region.

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Increasing awareness of class, ethnicity, culture, and race by expanding on students' own experiences.

Brislin¹

1988

The G. Stanley Hall Lecture Series, Vol. 8.

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BRlSLlNcepts is demonstrated by showing how they relate to such important topics as education, health, interpersonal relations, and child rearing practices.Of course, social class, ethnicity, culture, and race do not exhaust the major concepts summarizing influences on human diversity. Others have been reviewed in previously published G. Stanley Hall collections: age (Kagan, 1985;Schlossberg, 1984); sex (Denmark, 1983); psychological abnormalities (Sarason, 1983); and the physical environment in which people find themselves (Saegert, 1986;Stokols, 1982). As with the four concepts examined in this chapter, many psychological phenomena can be understood only when viewed in the context of other factors. For instance, a person's age, sex, social class, cultural background, and current environment all affect obesity and a person's attitude toward and ease in losing weight (Brownell, 1982;Grunberg, 1982;Rodin, 1981). Yet there has to be a starting point for introducing these topics to students, and the best teaching method ma): be to treat them one at a time and later to cover combinations of and interactions among the four concepts.This chapter has three major parts. In the first, the concepts of class, ethnicity, culture, and race will be explained. Further, research will be reviewed that points out important relations between and among these four concepts and such dependent variables as educational achievement, health, interpersonal relationships, and child rearing practices. For all four concepts, the point will be made that the general label (e.g., class) is almost always too broad for a helpful analysis of human behavior. Rather than accepting the general label as having explanatory use, a better practice is to ask what more specific independent variables (e.g.. number of books in the home, which is partly affected by parental income) have an impact on dependent variables (e.g., progress in reading in school).In a second section, research will be reviewed that requires understanding of two or more of the concepts. In addition, other research areas will be reviewed that have suffered because of faulty understanding of the four concepts. To preview one conclusion, many research findings have found a purported relationship between race (especially Black-White differences) and educational achievement (reviewed by Katz, 1973, who is sensitive to the dangers of facile conclusions concerning supposed racial differences). Such findings disappear or become much smaller in magnitude when the class background of students is assessed (e. g., Bardouille-Crema, Black, and Feldhusen, 1986). That is, the largest differences are often between middle-class and working-class Whites, or between middleand working-class Blacks, rather than between students who happen to have different skin colors.A third section will consider the four concepts as social categories individuals use to think about other people and how to behave 142

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Speech Characteristics as a Function of Social Class and Situational Factors

Cited by 6 publications

References 6 publications

Pausological aspects of children’s narratives

Pausological aspects of children’s narratives

Developmental sentence scoring : a comparative study conducted in Portland, Oregon

Increasing awareness of class, ethnicity, culture, and race by expanding on students' own experiences.

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