The role of socioeconomic factors in language development in young Lebanese children

早期的语言发展对孩子的整体健康和以后的学业成功有很大的影响。虽然口语发展在早期可能会以相对较快的速度进行，但儿童之间存在相当大的差异，这与外部（环境、社会和经济地位）和内部（感知、认知和语言）因素有关。就外部因素而言，在西方世界，社会经济地位（SES）已被证明对语言发展具有强大的预测作用。然而，对于这些或其他社会经济地位因素在非西方背景下是如何发挥作用的，我们知之甚少。本研究旨在通过定义与黎巴嫩相关的特定背景的ses因素，然后检查这些因素与早期语言发展之间的潜在联系，来填补这一空白。我们的目标是招募480个年龄在12至48个月之间的儿童家庭，按性别、地理区域和社会经济地位平衡。两份调查问卷将发给家长：一份是社会人口调查问卷，收集家庭社会经济地位的数据；另一份是社会语言学调查问卷，收集他们的语言实践和信仰以及他们在支持语言发展方面的参与情况。通过使用父母的CDI-L报告以及孩子和父母之间自发互动的记录语言样本，将获得儿童早期语言技能（词汇和语法）的测量。这项研究的结果将使与阿拉伯语儿童一起工作的幼儿专家能够识别与后期语言技能相关的早期风险和保护性指标，以支持设计有效的预防性干预措施，并提高入学准备。

Early language development has a great influence onchildren's overall wellbeing and later academic success. Whileoral language development may proceed at a relatively fastpace in the early years, there is considerable variation acrosschildren that is linked to external (environmental, social andeconomic status) and internal (perceptual, cognitive andlinguistic) factors. In terms of external factors, socioeconomicstatus (SES) has been shown to powerfully predict languagedevelopment, in the Western world. Yet, little is known abouthow this or other SES factors play out in a non-Westerncontext. This study aims to fill this gap by defining contextspecificSES factors that are relevant to Lebanon and thenexamining any potential associations between these factorsand early language development. We aim to recruit 480families of children aged between 12 and 48 months, balancedfor gender, geographical regions and SES. Two questionnaireswill be administered to parents: a socio-demographicquestionnaire eliciting data on the families' SES and asociolinguistic questionnaire eliciting data on their languagepractices and beliefs and their involvement in supportinglanguage development. Measures of the children's earlylanguage skills (vocabulary and grammar) will be obtainedthroughout the use of the parental CDI-L report as well asrecorded language samples of spontaneous interactionsbetween children and their parents. Results of this study willenable Early Years professionals working with Arabic-speakingchildren to identify early risk and protective indicatorsassociated with later language skills, to support the design ofpreventative efficient interventions and to enhance schoolreadiness.