Abstract
THE EFFECTS OF GENDER, SIBLING FACTOR, EDUCATIONAL STATUS OF PARENTS, WORKING MOTHERS AND SOCIOECONOMIC LEVEL OF FAMILIES ON THE LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN BETWEEN 24-36 MONTHS
The period in a child's life when development is most rapid is the 0-3 age range. Development during this period is of great importance for the child's future success. Human life begins with communication, and the 0-3 age range is the period when communication begins. Babies learn and develop by communicating with their environment from the moment they come into the world. Since a child is a social being by nature, he/she needs to interact with his/her environment and enters the language acquisition process to meet this need. During the language acquisition process, the person is in constant interaction with the environment, and this reveals the importance of environmental factors, especially the family, for human life (Bal, 1988; Koçak, 2003; Yavuzer, 1999). It has been mentioned in many studies that language development is affected not only by the characteristics of the language itself but also by various environmental factors such as family, social environment, level of education, and social interactions (Bloom, 1964; Erdoğan et al., 2005; Ergin, 2012; Erkan, 2011; Koçak, 2005; Öztürk, 1995; Temiz, 2002). When the literature in the field of language acquisition is examined, it is seen that most of the studies cover the period of 3 years and later, and that the language development that occurs in the critical period between the ages of 0-3 has not been examined sufficiently. However, the period between the ages of 0-3, when the foundations of the language are laid and the fastest development is the most important phase of the language acquisition process. The language acquisition process of children depends on many factors. Genetic predisposition, environmental factors, and social interactions play an important role in the language learning process. In this article, 159 children between the ages of 24-36 months and their parents were studied. Demographic and socioeconomic variables such as gender, number of siblings, parents' level of education, mother's employment status and family's socioeconomic level, which are thought to have potential effects on children's language acquisition process, were examined in detail. In this study, the relational screening model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in order to reveal the relationship between the variables. The language section of the standardized language development tests; "Turkish Expressive and Receptive Language Test (TİFALDİ)" and "Denver Development Screening Test II (DGTT II)" were used to evaluate different dimensions of children's language skills. In addition, the "Personal Information Form" was used to access children's demographic information. The analyses conducted concluded that children's language development did not differ according to their gender or whether they had siblings, that children whose mothers worked in a paid job outside the home had language developments that were more advanced than children whose mothers did not work, that children's language development levels increased as the parents' level of education increased, and that children's language development levels increased as the family's monthly income level increased.
Keywords
Language, Factors Affecting Language Development, Early Childhood, 24-36 Month Group Child, Parent E