Language Development and Socioeconomic Status

Abstract: Parent’s education level which is a reasonable measure of their SES is found to influence language proficiency of their children. Substance abusing parents from low SES tend to be negligent of their children, which affects their language development. Ethnic and racial minorities, especially whose first language is different from the dominant language of the region, have historically found social mobility difficult. Parents under mental stress tend to be poor caregivers and this affects the language acquisition of their children – most such adults are from lower SES. Introduction: Research indicates that of all the parent-child activities, reading to children has a major influence on the subsequent language development of the child. This is so, because the other verbal interactions between parents and children that occur during meals, playtime, dressing up, etc, are nowhere as verbally rich as reading is. It is also a well-established fact that parents from middle-class and higher socioeconomic backgrounds spend more time reading to their children than their poorer counterparts. This implies that children from the lower strata of society are at an increased risk of language delay. They are also generally found to possess poorer reading skills and below average academic performance (Mendelsohn, Leora, et.al. 2001, p.130). Language Acquisition in African American Children: Another strong influence on the language acquisition of children is the quality of care that they receive. And the quality of child-care is determined by the SES of the respective families. In one study performed on African American children aged between 6 and 12 months, nearly two thirds of them had otitis media with effusion and 2 out of 5 subjects also suffered partial hearing difficulties. The affected child suffers a partial hearing loss and hence the reception of auditory signals is poor and irregular. The ability of the child to discriminate and process speech and to store up that information in its developing repository of language is made difficult. The overall effect of all of this is a sluggish development of language skills (Roberts, Burchinal, et.al, 1998, p.353). Some of these children also suffered frequent ear infections and performed below par in language tests. The African American community generally fits in the lower-middle class or lesser bracket, which goes to show the relation between the SES and language development in children. The consistent under-achievement of African American students academically, including language skills is a widely recognized fact. Research conducted on the African American community over the last few decades suggests that the socio-economic backwardness of the community at large has a major role to play in this outcome. Traditional inequalities, cultural oppression, shanty-town housing environments and gangster rap attitude among the students have all contributed to this historical anomaly. It is also noted that African American students usually attend schools that are ineffective in imparting essential language skills. If socio-economic factors such as poverty and dysfunctional family systems may be the primary reason, but biases in standardized tests and prejudiced teachers are also significant factors. (Singer, Arendt, et.al. 2001, p.1057) The most appalling aspect of this institutionalized injustice to the African American community is the failure of the education system to impart literary and language skills to students from the community. As these skills are held to be vital to academic and professional success in contemporary America, the community is highly disadvantaged when it comes to finding jobs in trans-national corporations. Current literacy and language trends reveal that history continues to repeat itself. For example, in Los Angeles for the first time African American students scored lower than the bilingual population in reading, language, and writing on the CTBS-U (eighth-grade) in 1997-1998. More recently, as reported by the Nation's Report Card on Reading (2000), African American students had the lowest percentage of students, 12%, at or above proficiency compared to 32% for the nation. Something is not working. (Singer, Arendt, et.al. 2001, p.1058) The influence of Care-giving Environment: The responsiveness of home and care-giving environments (both at home and child care providers) also determines the levels of hearing difficulties in children. The first two years of care-giving is said to influence children’s linguistic and cognitive development later. The verbal and emotional responsiveness of the parent, availability of toys for play, the neatness and organization of the surroundings are all contributing factors to the child’s language acquisition. Maternal involvement is another important factor. All of these, however, happen to be of a poorer quality for children from lower socio-economic backgrounds. For example, the environment offered a toddler from low SES contain cheaper furnishings and play objects. The personal care routines are also found to be substandard. The care-giver, on average, talks, listens and interacts less with the child. Language Development and Substance Abuse: Infants exposed prenatal to cocaine have been found to have adverse neuronal development and uterine vascular flow. This is bound to have an effect on later language learning abilities. Needless to say, most cocaine addicted gestating mothers also belong to urban areas and are generally poor. Studies have found that infants more exposed to narcotic drugs “had lower auditory comprehension scores than non-exposed infants and lower total language scores than lighter and non-exposed infants … heavily exposed infants were also more likely to be classified as mildly delayed by total language score than non-exposed infants.” (Roberts, Burchinal, et.al., 1998, p.352). For the prenatal cocaine exposed child, definite under-functioning of neurological mechanisms such as concentration and memory are found. Motor skills and language acquisition are the other affected areas. The neurotransmitters of the fetus are slowed down, resulting in slower processing of aural information, and results in poorer language acquisition. The effects on the neurological system in turn affect the arousal system. The overall cognitive development of the baby is also noted to be sluggish. Some studies have even associated cocaine exposure with visual disorders. Hearing Loss and Language Learning: Hearing loss of varying degrees can determine how well a child learns a language and cognitive development. In a study conducted on 100 partial to completely deaf children, a large percentage of them lagged behind in age-specific language skills. A correlation between the SES of the study group and their hearing impairment was also found. Taking the level of education of the primary care-taker of the child, the SES is determined. And the studies indicate that the lower the SES the more severe the impairment. Also, most of these children performed poorly in verbal and mathematical intelligence tests. Even the academically better children from the group score lesser than their non-impaired counterparts (Yoshinaga-Itano, Sedey, et al 1998, p.1167). Language Development in Poor Ethnic Minorities: Various researches on immigrant’s acquisition of their new regional language show some interesting results. A comparative study across continents reveals that the rate of return to language capital is higher (17%) for immigrant men in the United States than for those in Australia (5-8%), Canada (12%) and Israel (11%), A report issued by the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), shows that male and female immigrants with above average speaking fluency earn 6.9% and 7.1% more than those with deficiency in the German language. Similarly, male and female immigrants with above average writing fluency in the German language earn 7.3% and 15.3% more than those with deficiency in the German language” (Dehaene-Lambertz & Hertz-Pannier 2006, p.370) An individual’s ethnicity is a factor in their language acquisition. Let us take the case of Russian immigrants in Israel post the break-up of the Soviet Union. A survey conducted on about eight hundred immigrants shows the strong link between host language acquisition and socio-economic status. Those immigrants who learnt Hebrew quickly found good economic success and easy integration. Younger and upwardly mobile immigrants showed a tendency towards additive bilingualism, incorporating the elements of Hebrew into their everyday communications and cultural/media consumption. Mastering and using Hebrew serves as a trigger for reshaping immigrants' identity, resulting in the gradual formation of a new ethnic entity--Russian Israeli. (Remennick 2004, p.439) Socioeconomic Status of Immigrants in Canada: Another study conducted on refugees from different parts of Asia settling in Canada finds that such communities are more susceptible to stress-related illness such as depression. Most of the refugees did not know English or French initially. How well they learned these languages during the course of their refuge is quite interesting. About one in ten of them did not learn the new language even a little, even after a decade of living in the new country. Those who could find employment easily also improved their language substantially, increasing their future chances of employment. This means - employment being an indicator of SES – those in the higher strata of the socioeconomic ladder within the community when they first landed in the region has proved to have a significant effect on their quality of life. Those who remained unemployed or found occasional employment also suffered depression more often. By the end of the first decade in Canada, English language fluency was a significant predictor of depression and employment, particularly among refugee women and among people who did not become engaged in the labor market during the earliest years of resettlement. Study results demonstrate that the mental health salience of risk and protective factors changes according to the phase of resettlement.” (Beiser & Hou 2001, p.1321) Similar trends are seen in ethnic minorities in Britain. The surveys show that the better quality of life enjoyed by the whites is as much a result of English being their first language for the majority of them. In other words, the non-white ethnic minorities’ major hurdle to social mobility is their non-proficiency in English. This is supported further by the fact that after adjusting for language factors, the overall unemployment figures of whites as well as non-whites are quite similar, although the latter are slightly behind in terms of income earned. The figures are consistent for both men and women (Leslie & Lindley 2001, p.591). Influence of Maternal mental illness: More specifically, the mother’s intelligence (verbal and nonverbal), level of education and history of mental illness were found to have an influence on the language development of the child. The child’s cognition proficiency is especially correlated to the mother’s psychological disturbance. Illnesses such as depression and personality disorders are the most damaging. In addition the illness, if the mothers are also abusing drugs and alcohol, the language outcome of the child is much worse (Dehaene-Lambertz & Hertz-Pannier 2006, p.370). Substance abusing mothers were found to have inadequate parenting skills. Since they themselves are emotionally deprived to an extent, their show of affection and love for their child in the form of verbal exchanges is also limited to the extent. Needless to say, it is found that mothers belonging to lower SES are also more severely addicted to drugs. Subsequently, they are more emotionally volatile and under chronic mental stress, all having a malefic impact on the language and cognitive development of the child. The other care-givers in such an environment are less inclined to form strong bonds with the child and thus negatively impacting its development. The other caregivers themselves might be into substance abuse, including usage of marijuana, alcohol and tobacco. References: Beiser, Morton, and Hou Feng. (Nov 15, 2001). "Language acquisition, unemployment and depressive disorder among Southeast Asian refugees: a 10-year study." Social Science & Medicine 53.10 : 1321. Dehaene-Lambertz, Ghislaine, Lucie Hertz-Pannier, and Jessica Dubois. (July 2006) "Nature and nurture in language acquisition: anatomical and functional brain- imaging studies in infants." Trends in Neurosciences 29.7 : 367(7). Leslie, Derek, and Joanne Lindley. (Nov 2001). "The impact of language ability on employment and earnings of Britain's ethnic communities", Economica 68.272 : 587(20). Mendelsohn, Alan L., Leora N. Mogilner, Benard P. Dreyer, Joel A. Forman, Stacey C. Weinstein, Monica Broderick, Karyn J. Cheng, Tamara Magloire, Taska Moore, and Camille Napier. (Jan 2001). "The Impact of a Clinic-Based Literacy Intervention on Language Development in Inner-City Preschool Children.", Pediatrics 107.1 : 130. Roberts, Joanne E., Margaret R. Burchinal, Susan A. Zeisel, Eloise C. Neebe, Stephen R. Hooper, Jackson Roush, Donna Bryant, Martha Mundy, and Frederick W. Henderson. (August 1998). "Otitis media, the caregiving environment, and language and cognitive outcomes at 2 years.", Pediatrics 102.n2 : 346(9). Remennick, Larissa. (May 2004). "Language acquisition, ethnicity and social integration among former Soviet immigrants of the 1990s in Israel.(Author Abstract)." Ethnic and Racial Studies 27.3 : 431(24). Singer, Lynn T., Robert Arendt, Sonia Minnes, Ann Salvator, A. Carol Siegel, and Barbara A. Lewis. (May 2001). "Developing Language Skills of Cocaine-Exposed Infants.", Pediatrics 107.5 : 1057. Yoshinaga-Itano, Christine, Allison L. Sedey, Diane K. Coulter, and Albert L. Mehl. (Nov 1998). "Language of early- and later-identified children with hearing loss.", Pediatrics 102.n5 : 1161(11).

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