Psychological factors of preschoolers speech development

Abstract

The article presents results of the study aimed to identify factors affecting the language development in children living in urban and rural areas. The study involved 274 children, aged 2 to 7 years and 274 female parents aged 21 to 42 years. Research methods included socio-demographic questions, the “Family relations and home” questionnaire evaluating the external social relations, internal family relations and family activity; language performance was evaluated by means of the comprehensive examination. The language development was found to be affected by a set of factors such as gender, extracurricular activities, intra- and inter-family interactions. The systemic effect of these factor is not equivalent to the effect of each individual factor. The system of factors related to the language development has both quantitative and qualitative nature. The level of language development was not found to depend on the place of residence (urban or rural area), as well as on the family composition (one- or two-child). However, the connection between speech understanding and the place of residence was mediated by the number of children in the family. At last, age is the most critical factor determining the language development given that the criteria for the language development vary for different age periods.