nicole kotras masters thesis

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descriptive sentences and pronouns with regards to the large revised SA and UK pictures.
Templin (1957) found that children from middle-class, well-educated families,
generally scored higher on practical standard measures of linguistic ability - vocabulary,
sentence structure, and articulation than those from families with parents who did not
complete high school. One possible explanation for these differences may be the different
types of speech used by mothers in these social-class groups. When considering patterns
of verbal interaction, it was found that lower-class mothers typically used a restricted
language code, talking to their children in short, simple, easily understood sentences that
refer primarily to the here-and-now events. Middle-class mothers, on the other hand, use
elaborated code in disciplining their children, teaching them moral standards, and
communicating feelings and emotions. Although the simpler code may be more useful to
very young children, the more complex codes used by middle- (and upper-) class mothers
could enable older children to be more orientated toward abstractions (Mussen, et. al.,
1984). In general, the findings of the Coloured pre-schoolers are consistent with those of
previous research, namely, that there were differences in the performances of children from
the different socio-economic groups (Hindley, 1960; Allan, 1998, 1992; Hanson and Aldridge
Smith, 1987).
Table 24 indicates the English- and Afrikaans- speaking Coloured pre-schoolers'
responses to the revised small and large SA and UK pictures.
It is evident from Table 24 that for both samples the English-speaking Coloured
children correctly identified the highest mean number of stimuli from the 20 small revised
pictures. Regarding the large revised SA and UK pictures, the English-speaking pre-
schoolers obtained the highest mean number of identified stimuli, elicited descriptive words,
descriptive sentences, and pronouns. The same trend was noted with the White pre-
schoolers of sample 2. Allan (1988, 1992) stated that previous research completed utilizing
the Griffiths Scales with Coloured children 5 years of age, found no significant difference
between the English- and Afrikaans-speaking children. However, Doyer and Owen (1980)
and Verster and Prinsloo (1988) found significant differences in the ASB scores of English-
and Afrikaans-speaking Coloured children.