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      Effekte sprachlicher Förderung sowie sozialer Aspekte auf sprachliche Lernzuwächse bei Kindern mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund im Vorschulalter

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          Abstract

          Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Effekte von sozialen Aspekten, Alter, Förderung im Kindergartenalltag und spezieller Sprachförderung sowie des Ausgangsniveaus von Intelligenz und sprachlichen Fähigkeiten auf die sprachlichen Lernzuwächse von Vorschulkindern. Die Leistungsentwicklung von 1150 Kindergartenkindern wurde im Längsschnitt zu Beginn und am Ende eines Kindergartenjahres erfasst. Die sprachlichen Fähigkeiten wurden mit dem Sprachscreening für das Vorschulalter (SSV) getestet.

          Bei der multiplen Regressionsanalyse zur Vorhersage der Lernzuwächse im Satzgedächtnis zeigten neben dem Alter das phonologische Arbeitsgedächtnis für Nichtwörter, häuslicher Buchbestand sowie der Migrationshintergrund signifikante Einflüsse. Für Lernzuwächse im phonologischen Arbeitsgedächtnis erwiesen sich der Migrationshintergrund sowie die Ausgangsleistung im Satzgedächtnis als signifikante Prädiktoren. Einflüsse der Sprachförderung auf die sprachliche Leistungsentwicklung konnten nur bei geringen Ausgangsleistungen und bei Kindern mit Migrationshintergrund gefunden werden.

          Effects on Language Learning Gains

          Background: Insufficient language proficiency is assumed to be one of the most important predictors for later school performance of children with German as a second language as well as of children from underprivileged families. Children with German as a second language usually come into contact with the German language about three years later than children with German as a first language and the intensity of contact may vary greatly. Moreover, children with German as a second language often grow up in educationally disadvantaged families lacking cultural, social and economic resources. On the other hand children with German as a first language often come from underprivileged families and show poor language proficiency because of insufficient environmental linguistic enhancement. Otherwise children's poor first language skills may arise because of specific language impairments. Since language abilities are essential for a child’s success at school it seems reasonable to provide an early and intensive language training for these two groups of children to ensure a positive school career.

          Often cultural as well as social resources correlate with the development of children's language proficiency. The number of books within the household as an indicator of cultural resources and the income of parents play an important role for the development of language abilities. As the educational system aims at reducing social disparities between students from different social backgrounds, different remedial programs for children with developmental delay in linguistic competence as well as for children with language impairments were initiated. However, in German-speaking countries such as Austria only a few evaluations of language skills training programs for children with German as a first or second language were completed. Furthermore, the effects of unspecific trainings (f. e. language enhancement in kindergarten) are not clear at the moment. Focusing on the German educational system, it can be said that it has not been very successful in reducing social disparities or in providing approximately equal opportunities for all children. Even when controlling the initial level of abilities, children with lower social background are disadvantaged in the development of linguistic abilities.

          Aims: The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of different social and cognitive aspects – such as the influence of the socioeconomic background, age, intelligence and the individual level of language abilities – on the language learning progress of preschool children. Further, the influence of the time spent in kindergarten and the influence of special language intervention programs on the language learning progress have been examined. The assumption is that the individual language abilities correlate positively with the cognitive abilities as well as with social and cultural aspects of the families. The years of kindergarten attendance should also correlate significantly with the language abilities.

          Secondly, the present study focuses on predicting the increase in language proficiency in programs with a controlled baseline. At the same time the effect of the language intervention program „Sag' mal was – Sprachförderung für Vorschulkinder“ of the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung is investigated

          Finally it is necessary to analyze the different effects of the language intervention program for children with and without German as a second language and also for children with different initial value levels. As the program is aimed at supporting primarily children with German as a second language, these children should benefit more from the intervention.

          Method: The language development of 1150 children (626 boys, 524 girls) was measured within a longitudinal study at the beginning and the end of a kindergarten year. All participants were selected from the database of the evaluation of the program financed by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung. 40.2 % of the participants were monolingual, 59.3 % were at least bilingual. The language skills were tested with two subtests (sentence memory and phonological working memory for non-words) of the “Sprachscreening für das Vorschulalter” (SSV, Grimm, 2003). General cognitive abilities were measured with the Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM, Bulheller & Häcker, 2002). Social as well as cultural aspects (migration background, income of the family, number of books in the household) were surveyed with a parent questionnaire.

          The years of kindergarten attendance were operationalized calculating the time from kindergarten entrance to the measurement time point.

          In the first step, the correlations of all variables at the first measurement point were analyzed. Then learning gains in language abilities (sentence memory and phonological working memory) were predicted with the multiple regression analyses.

          Variance analyses were calculated to show different effects of the language intervention program. 108 language intervention groups took part within the present study. Between six and twelve children attended each group. The intervention lasted between nine and 41 weeks (mean = 33.61 weeks). The intervention sometimes was accomplished by the kindergarten teacher itself, sometimes by an expert from outside with a special qualification in language enhancement. The intervention programs used were different. Some teachers used specific (f. e. the language intervention from Penner, 2005) other unspecific intervention programs. Most of the teachers used several kinds of programs.

          Results: As expected, the family income as well as the number of books in the household correlated with language abilities. Learning gains in sentence memory were predicted by the age – younger children performed better –, the initial value of phonological working memory for non-words – children with lower values performed better –, number of books in the household and migration background.

          Migration background and initial level of sentence memory showed significant effects on learning gains in phonological working memory. Important to notice is that the migration background had a negative influence on learning gains in sentence memory and a positive influence on learning gains in phonological working memory for non-words. Effects of language intervention on the development of language abilities could only be found within the subgroups of children with migration background and children with low initial level of abilities.

          Discussion and implications of the results: Results showed that there are still large social disparities in the German educational system. Even by controlling the initial level of abilities the influence of social aspects on the development of language abilities is persisting. The program could not reduce the inequality between children with high and low socioeconomic background. Children from families with high social status develop better and those of low social status develop slower.

          Furthermore, the study couldn't show a compensatory effect of kindergarten attendance on social disparity either. Taking the results of other studies into account (e. g. Schöler & Roos, 2011) one can assume that the educational staff in kindergarten needs a better training to meet the increased requirements of different children with heterogeneous needs. Finally, the results suggest that intervention programs in kindergarten can improve children's language abilities, but not all children profit from the same kind of intervention. This implies the necessity for specific diagnostic assessment followed by a child-appropriate intervention.

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          Most cited references26

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          Sprachlich-kognitive Kompetenzen beim Eintritt in den Kindergarten. Ein Vergleich von Kindern mit und ohne Migrationshintergrund

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            Schulstruktur und die Entstehung differenzieller Lern- und Entwicklungsmilieus. In J. Baumert, P. Stanat & R. Watermann (Hrsg.)

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              The role of home literacy environment in the development of languageability in preschool children from low-income families

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                lls
                Lernen und Lernstörungen
                Die interdisziplinäre Zeitschrift für den lebenslangen Prozess des Lernens
                Hogrefe AG, Bern
                2235-0977
                2235-0985
                January 2014
                : 3
                : 1
                : 39-51
                Affiliations
                [ 1 ] Institut für Erziehungs- und Bildungswissenschaft, Universität Graz
                [ 2 ] Pädagogische Hochschule Weingarten
                [ 3 ] Institut für Pädagogik der Elementar- und Primarstufe, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
                Author notes
                Dr. Susanne Schwab, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Institut für Erziehungs- und Bildungswissenschaft, , Abteilung für Integrationspädagogik und Heilpädagogische Psychologie, , Merangasse 70/2, , 8010 Graz, , Österreich, susanne.schwab@ 123456uni-graz.at
                Article
                lls_3_1_39
                10.1024/2235-0977.a000051
                b638d0d4-106c-4a38-95b1-3480f64ca58a
                Copyright @ 2014
                History
                Categories
                Empirische Arbeit

                Pediatrics,Psychology,Neurosciences,Family & Child studies,Development studies,Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                longitudinal study,Sprachförderung,social and individual factors,sentence memory,preschool age,Satzgedächtnis,Längsschnittstudie,phonologisches Gedächtnis,phonological working memory,soziale und individuelle Einflussfaktoren,language intervention,Vorschulalter

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