2011 The Palm Beach County Family Study (Full Report)

emotional development are in line with their reports in the previous year (see Table C- 4 in Appendix C),but they also show modest change in a positive direction for most items at year 5. The most importantdifferences noted are declines in the percentages of children who were reported to do “things withoutthinking” and who were described as “aggressive.”We also looked at whether mothers’ reports on their children’s social-emotional development differed bymother’s nativity (Table C- 5). We did not find any differences between foreign- and U.S.-born mothersin terms of reports of positive characteristics. However, we did find that foreign-born mothers weresignificantly more likely than U.S.-born mothers to report that their child is “overly active,” “worriesabout things,” and “does things without thinking” at least some of the time. These responses may reflect,in part, cultural differences in expectations for the behavior of preschool children.Communication and Language DevelopmentChildren develop language skills largely through social interactions—playing, listening, talking, andreading with other people—and children learn the style and rules of communication that are characteristicof their family and culture. As with other areas of development, children learn language at very differentrates depending on both individual characteristics and the social context. However, most have said theirfirst words by their first birthday, and most have started combining words by their second birthday.Children’s early language and communication skills are important in their own right, but they are alsoclosely linked to their cognitive and social development and, particularly, their future language andliteracy development. Thus, we believe it is especially important in the PBC family study to attempt toassess children’s language development during the preschool years.In terms of general communication skills, almost two-thirds or more of the mothers reported that theirfocal child listens well, speaks clearly, uses “I” to refer to him- or herself, uses appropriate socialgreetings and can say his or her first and last name “almost all of the time” (see Table 18). “Waiting for aturn to talk” did not come as easily, however, for these 4-year-olds. About half of the mothers reportedthat their children could “sometimes” wait their turn, while 20 percent responded “almost all of the time.”Also, as shown in Table C- 7, there were some small but statistically significant differences in reports byforeign- and U.S.-born mothers. On the one hand, foreign-born mothers were more likely to report thattheir focal child is a good listener and refers to him- or herself as “I.” On the other hand, U.S.-bornmothers were more likely to report that their focal child speaks clearly, uses appropriate social greetings,and can say his or her first and last name. 28 However, the latter two differences may reflect differences in28 However, these differences are only significant at the 10 percent level.Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 36