Determining the Relationship of Children’s Socioeconomic Background with Vocabulary Development:

배경 및 목적: 이 연구의 목적은 부모의 사회경제적 지위와 형제순서에 따라 3세와 7세 유아의 수용/표현 어휘발달에 차이가 있는가를 종단적으로 알아보기 위한 것이다. 방법: 아동패널의 3세와 7세 대규모 종단적 발달 자료를 분석하였다. 결과: 모학력에 따른 어휘력의 뚜렷한 차이는 없는 것으로 나타났고 가구의 사회경제적 수준이 높을수록 7세의 점수가 더 높은 것으로 나타났다. 형제순서는 3세와 7세에서 모두 영향을 미쳤다. 논의 및 결론: 이 결과를 국내외 기존 연구들과 비교 논의하였다.

Objectives: The current study examined whether early receptive and expressive vocabulary development is related with children’s socioeconomic background by analyzing longitudinal data of Korean children at 3 and 7 years of age. Methods: In general, both vocabulary scores were about 2.5 times higher at 7 years than at 3 years. Socioeconomic background was significantly associated with expressive vocabulary development at age 3, and with the amount of change in the receptive scores between the ages of 3 and 7. While this relationship was maintained in the expressive scores of the 7-year-old, for lower income families the first child tended to develop relatively slowly while the third child developed the quickest. In addition, the results showed that girls’ scores tended to be higher than boys’ scores at 3-year-old, and the difference was maintained in all other scores. Results: There were effects of household income and birth order which interacted. The birth order effect pattern was very similar to the effect of household income. Conclusion: The results are discussed in comparison with previous Korean findings and with international ones.