Language proficiency analysis of Turkish children from high-income and highly educated families aged 5 in Antalya

• Published in: Language Testing in Asia 2021-11, Vol.11 (1), p.1-24, Article 28
• Main Authors: Pinar, Yunus, Ünal, Fatma, Pinar, Nihal Kubilay
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Advantaged; Assessment; Diagnostic evaluation; Diagnostic Tests; Education; Educational Attainment; Families & family life; Family (Sociological Unit); Family Characteristics; Foreign Countries; High income; Information Technology; Interviews; Language acquisition; Language assessment; Language Education; Language Proficiency; Language Tests; Language Usage; Mothers; Native Language; Native language acquisition; Parent Attitudes; Parenting Styles; Pre-school education; Preschool Children; Preschool education; Self Esteem; Semi Structured Interviews; Socioeconomic status; Speech Impairments; Speech sounds; Speech-language pathology; Story Telling; Testing and Evaluation; Time Management; Turkish; Turkish language; Vocabulary Development; Vocabulary learning; Vocabulary Skills
• ISSN: 2229-0443; 2229-0443
• DOI: 10.1186/s40468-021-00138-1

In this study, we examine the mother tongue proficiency of pre-school children from high-income and highly educated families in Antalya, Turkey. The study used the Turkish version of the Hamburger Instrument for the Analysis of the Language Level of 5-year olds (HAVAS 5) linguistic-level diagnostic tool that is originally employed to form the basis of individually customized language support programs. The study group of this research was made up of 41 pre-school children ( n = 41; 29 boys, 12 girls). Furthermore, a semi-structured interview (SSI) form was developed by the authors and finally conducted with 3 mothers and their husbands ( n =6). Our study results show that the majority of the children (33/41) from high-income and highly educated families showed an advanced level of language proficiency especially in the realm of vocabulary acquisition. In particular, the children were observed to be self-confident when using their mother tongue and that they did not hesitate to take initiatives during the HAVAS 5 storytellings. Our qualitative results suggest also that a small group of children who are either introverts or having lower level language proficiency may have a specific trait, condition or characteristic. Based on the data from interviews, emotional atmosphere of the family, parenting styles, speech sound disorder (SSD) or excessive screen-based media use might reasonably be suspected of having some influence on mother tongue proficiency.