Language Characteristics of Children from Culturally Diverse Family Environments

Hwang, Sang-Shim; Jeong, Ok-Ran

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 2008;13(2): 174-192.

Sang-Shim Hwang^` , and Ok-Ran Jeong^`

황상심(Sang-Shim Hwang)| 정옥란(Ok-Ran Jeong)

ABSTRACT

Background & Objectives
It is expected that children from a culturally diverse family environment will have different language abilities to children from a culturally uniform family environment because of the exposure of the former to different language environments. This study compared language characteristics of children from culturally diverse groups (experimental group: Japanese, Philippines, and others; n=47) to those of Korean children (control group). The majority of the experimental group subjects were from the Philippines and Japan.
Methods
To evaluate the speech and language abilities of the children, two standardized tests (Preschool Receptive-Expressive Language Scale and Picture Vocabulary Test) were used. Performances were analyzed by the “t” test procedure.
Results
First, there were statistically significant differences in speech and language performance between the culturally diverse environment group and the control group. Second, when the country of origin of the mother was taken into account, there were no significant differences in percentiles.
Discussion & Conclusion
The results of the study suggest that the language abilities of children from a culturally diverse family environment are different from those from a culturally uniform family environment. Future studies examining the specific linguistic characteristics within each cultural group are warranted.