Language development and its relation to social behavior and family and school environments: a systematic review

Carvalho, Amanda de Jesus Alvarenga; Lemos, Stela Maris Aguiar; Goulart, Lúcia Maria Horta de Figueiredo

doi:10.1590/2317-1782/20162015193

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Systematic Review • CoDAS 28 (4) • Aug 2016 • https://doi.org/10.1590/2317-1782/20162015193 copy

Language development and its relation to social behavior and family and school environments: a systematic review

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

ABSTRACT

Purpose

To conduct a systematic review of the literature on the relationship between language development, social behavior, and family and school environments in children aged 4 to 6 years.

Research strategy

Papers published between March 2009 and March 2014 were searched in electronic databases. The first phase of the study consisted in preparing the guiding question. Subsequently, survey and selection of studies were conducted. To this end, descriptors were defined by groups of themes.

Selection criteria

The following types of publications were included in the search: complete scientific articles available in full and freely and original research papers or literature reviews published in the past five years covering the 4 to 6-year age range.

Data analysis

The analysis of the papers was conducted through critical reading and selection of the results that responded to the guiding question.

Results

Fourteen articles were selected. Most of the studies used at least one standardized instrument. Research indicates that the family environment is related to language development, mainly regarding socioeconomic status and parental education; number of adults who live with the child; parental health; language motivation; and interaction between parents and children. Only one article showed association between quality of the school environment and language development, and none showed evidence of an association between social behavior and language development.

Conclusion

Most of the studies analyzed focus on the relationship between family environment and language development. Very few studies with this approach are available in the specific literature.

Keywords:
Child Language; Language; Language Development; Language Arts; Speech-language Pathology; Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences; Preschool Child; Family Relations; Social Behavior

Study	Country of origin	Sample	Instruments	Results
Cartmill et al.⁽²²⁾	USA	50 parent-child dyads. Children aged 14 to 58 months with typical language development.	Monitoring of parent-child interaction, every four months from 14 to 58 months of age.	Quality of interaction: wide variation in the contextual cues offered to children by their parents.
Cartmill et al.⁽²²⁾	USA	27 males, 23 females.	Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) applied at 54 months of age.	The monitoring of children showed correlation between interaction quality and language skills in children at 54 months of age.
Rowe et al.⁽²³⁾	USA	62 main caregiver-child dyads. Children aged 14 to 46.	Child monitoring in the home environment, every four months from 14 to 46 month for assessment of vocabulary expansion	Socioeconomic status proved to be a positive predictor of vocabulary expansion.
			Assessment of receptive vocabulary at 54 months of age.	Vocabulary assessment at 30 months proved to be a predictor of lexical development.
			Assessment of receptive vocabulary at 54 months of age.	No correlation was found between gender and speed in vocabulary expansion.
Bornstein and Putnick⁽²⁴⁾	USA	192 children aged 20 to 48 months: 87 females and 105 males.	Child monitoring on spontaneous speech in the interaction with the mother.
			Maternal report: Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales and Early Language Inventory.	Wide individual variation was found at the 20 to 48-month age range.
			Language assessment: Scales of Expressive Language Comprehension and Wechsler Preschool.	Stability in language development was maintained between independent assessments of socioeconomic factors, medical history, maternal intelligence and gender.
Whitehouse et al.⁽¹⁹⁾	Australia	1623 children distributed in two groups: with expressive language delay aged 2 years or less (n=142) and with typical language development (n=1245).	Language Development Survey	Delay in expressive vocabulary at 2 years of age proved to be a low efficiency predictor of behavioral and emotional disorders.
Whitehouse et al.⁽¹⁹⁾	Australia		The Child Behavior Checklist
Pruden et al.⁽²⁵⁾	USA
		52 parent-child dyads. Children aged 14 to 46 months with typical language development 26 males and 26 females.	Spatial transformation task. Subtest with blocks of the Primary Scale of Intelligence.	Statistically significant differences between genders in the spatial transformation task.
			Spatial Analogy Test. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT).	Positive correlation between the spatial tasks: children who performed well on one task tended to perform well on the other tasks too.
			Monitoring of dyad interaction in daily routines.	Positive correlation between the use of words with spatial meaning by parents and children.
Razza et al.⁽²¹⁾	USA	1046 children aged 3 to 5 years.	Family environment evaluation: HOME protocol and socioeconomic level.	Statistically significant correlation between sustained attention, receptive vocabulary, and environmental aspects (socioeconomic status and family environment).
			Maternal mental health rating.
			Child Rating:	Children with higher scores in the family environment evaluation performed better in the receptive vocabulary assessment.
			Sustained Attention Scale, Spatial Analogy Test. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and school readiness.
Zimmerman et al.⁽²⁶⁾	USA	275 families and their children aged 2 to 48 months (stage 1).	12-hour period recording of children’s word count in routine situations, one day a month for 6 months in the sample of stage 1 and for 18 months in the sample of stage 2.	On average, per day, the children heard 13,000 words spoken by adults and participated in 400 conversational turns.
		71 families and their children throughout 18 months (stage 2).	Analysis of passages during adult-child interaction and exposure to television.	Positive correlation was found between adult word count and child word count. Each 1000-word increase in the adult word count is associated with a 0.44 increase in the PLS-normed score.
			Preschool Language Scale, Fourth Edition (PLS-4).

Study	Country of origin	Study design	Sample	Procedures	Results
Murta et al.⁽²⁸⁾	Brazil	Cross-sectional	48 children aged 1 month to 6 years, 8 for each of the following age groups:	Portage Inventory Nutritional assessment with anthropometric measurements. Socioeconomic questionnaire. .	Statistically significant correlation between language development and cognition.
Murta et al.⁽²⁸⁾	Brazil	Cross-sectional	0-1 year, 1-2 years, 2-3 years, 3-4 years, 4-5 years, and 5-6 years.		No statistically significant correlation between language development and the variables family environment, social behavior, and school environment
Pagliarin et al.⁽²⁷⁾	Brazil	Cross-sectional	152 children with phonological disorder aged 4 to 8 years.	Structured interview with parents or guardians on family factors.	No statistically significant correlation between level of phonological disorder and the family aspects investigated: unplanned pregnancy; addiction (of a parent and/or both) to alcohol and/or drugs; speech, language, and/or hearing disorders presented by parents and/or first-degree relatives; divorced parents; absent father; and loss of close relatives.
				Children Phonological Assessment (CPA)
				Narration and spontaneous conversation using a logical sequence of five facts the “birthday” theme.
Sheridan et al.⁽¹⁸⁾	USA	Clinical trail	217 children aged 35 to 52 months. (116 in the intervention group and 101 in the control group).	Intervention group: Protocol of intervention strategies and home visits.	Alterations in the performance of the intervention group with respect to use of spoken language, reading, and writing skills.
				Teachers: Intervention group: training for intervention application.
			211 parents (111 in the intervention group and 100 in the control group).
				Control group: training in child development.	Positive effects of the intervention in the expressive language of children at risk of development were demonstrated.
			29 teachers (in the intervention group and 16 in the control group).	Rating of groups:
				The Teacher Rating of Oral Language and Literacy -teachers.
				Preschool Language Scale – Fourth Edition – children.
Oliveira et al.⁽²⁰⁾	Brazil	Qualitative descriptive	12 children aged 5 to 6 years (6 selected for target analysis and 6 as interacting pairs). 6 mothers 6 teachers	Semi-structured interview with the mothers. Questionnaire applied to the teachers. Monitoring of children’s communication in the school and home environments.	Communicative functions showed greater variety for home environment compared with school environment.
Araújo et al.⁽²⁹⁾	Brazil	Cross-sectional	159 students aged 4 to 7 years.	Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT).	61% of the children aged 4-5 years presented performance lower than the expected for their ages. . No statistically significant correlation was found between genders (p=0.94).
Araújo et al.⁽²⁹⁾	Brazil	Cross-sectional	159 students aged 4 to 7 years.	Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT).	No statistical significance was found in the analysis of the variables mother's education (p=0.42); and mothers who work outside the home (p=0.99).

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[1] Conflict of interests: nothing to declare.