Date of Award

1999

Degree Name

Psychology

College

College of Liberal Arts

Type of Degree

M.A.

Document Type

Thesis

First Advisor

Mariana Footo-Linz

Second Advisor

Margaret Fish

Third Advisor

Mary Reynolds

Fourth Advisor

Leonard J. Deutsch

Abstract

The impact of risk and protective factors on rural Appalachian preschoolers’ (4-years-old) language skills was explored in a longitudinal study of 85 high socioeconomic risk families. Factors examined were family demographics and social support status, mother-child attachment relationships, maternal personality and attitudes, mother interactional behaviors, and infant and child temperament and behaviors. Child language outcome measures included the Preschool Language Scale-3 and pragmatic analyses of spontaneous speech. Data indicated that this population had significantly less developed linguistic skills than other comparison groups, both standardized and low socioeconomic (SES) risk. Differences in language skills for this sample can be predicted from a combination of SES, mother, and child characteristics. Attachment status alone or in combination with risk factors did not serve a protective function for linguistic communication development in this group.

Subject(s)

Language arts (Preschool) – Appalachian Region.

Sociolinguistics.

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