The impact of language skills and social competence on play behaviour in toddlers

Author
Stangeland, E. B.
Source
European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 25(1), 106-121.
Year
2017

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between toddlers' play behaviour, language skills and social competences. The author explores whether there is a relationship between play behaviour and language skills, including what characterises the types of play in which children with weak and strong language skills, respectively, are included. Moreover, the study examines whether toddlers' social competence explains their play behaviour, including whether children with weak language skills have a level of social competence that corresponds to the level of children with strong language skills.

 

Result

The research results indicate that there is a relationship between toddlers' language skills, social competence and functioning in play. The statistical analysis shows that the group of children with weak language skills function worse in play activities than their peers with average or strong language skills. For example, this is evident in that only a small percentage of children with weak language skills are included in more complex types of play, such as roleplay, social construction play or more long-term play. However, the results suggest that the largest difference between the group of children with weak language skills and children with strong language skills is not related to the complexity of the play, but rather to how they engage socially in play with other children. Only a small percentage of children with weak language skills thus receive the maximum number of points in the assessment of their abilities to play with other children and to remain in the play. According to the author, this indicates that children with weak language skills spend more of their time at the ECEC centre playing by themselves.

Based on the above, language skills in themselves may have an impact on children's play behaviour. However, the analysis indicates that social competence plays an even larger role. The majority of children with weak language skills were assessed to have poor social competence in terms of adjusting to other children (for example collaboration and turn-taking) and understanding other perspectives. According to the author, this is in line with previous research, which indicates that social understanding and language are related. Overall, the author assesses that toddlers' metacommunication skills may be more important than their language skills with regard to interaction in play. Therefore, weak social skills rather than weak language skills may be more crucial for toddlers' difficulties to enter into play. Although no causal conclusions can be made from the study, the author finally indicates that perhaps weak social competences and language difficulties should be perceived as co-existent problems with consequences for children's play.

 

Design

The study builds on observations carried out in connection with a larger, longitudinal project, The Stavanger Project - The Learning Child (Stavangerprosjektet – Det lærende barnet), carried out in collaboration between the Reading Centre at the University of Stavanger and the City of Stavanger. The empirical material used in the study comes from the first phase of the project, which focused on observations of language skills, social competence and play in 33-month-old children.

The author selected three groups for the analysis: 1) a group of 100 children with weak language skills, 2) a group of 102 children with strong language skills, and 3) a group of 113 children with average language skills. The final group was included in the study for comparison.

The data material consists of structured observations of the individual child's skills within language, play and social functioning, as expressed in play and other everyday activities in the ECEC setting. Each child was observed over a period of three months by ECEC staff who knew the child. Two observational tools were applied: TRAS - Early Registration of language development, which is a language assessment tool, and Alle med, which focuses on the child's socio-emotional development. The results of the observations were analysed using descriptive statistics, frequency analysis and regression analysis.

References

Stangeland, E. B. (2017). The impact of language skills and social competence on play behaviour in toddlers. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 25(1), 106-121.

Financed by

The University of Stavanger and the City of Stavanger.