Communicative Function Use of Preschoolers and Mothers from Differing Racial and Socioeconomic Groups

Purpose: This study explores whether communicative function (CF: reasons for communicating) use differs by socioeconomic status (SES), race/ethnicity, or gender among preschoolers and their mothers. Method: Mother-preschooler dyads (N=95) from the National Center for Early Development and Learning’s (NCEDL, 2005) study of Family and Social Environments were observed during one structured learning and free play interaction. CFs were coded by trained independent raters. Results: Children used all CFs at similar rates but those from low SES homes produced fewer utterances and less Reasoning, while boys used less Self-maintaining and more Predicting. African American (AA) mothers produced more Directing and less Responding than European American (EA) and Latino American (LA) mothers, and LA mothers produced more utterances than EA mothers. Mothers from low SES homes did more Directing and less Responding. Conclusion: Mothers exhibited more socio-cultural differences in CFs than children; this suggests that maternal demographic characteristics may influence CF production more than child demographics at school entry. Children from low SES homes talking less and boys producing less Self-maintaining coincided with patterns previously detected in pragmatic literature. Overall, preschoolers from racial/ethnic minority and low SES homes were not less deft with CF usage, which may inform how their pragmatic skills are described.Royster Society of Fellows at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Office of Educational Research and Improvement in the U.S. Department of Education Foundation for Child Development