Habilidades de comprensión y producción narrativa en niños montevideanos de 5 años. Una comparación por nivel socioeconómico / Narrative abilities in a group of Uruguayan preschoolers from different socioeconomic backgrounds

Resumen Este estudio caracteriza y compara las habilidades narrativas y el vocabulario receptivo de 54 preescolares montevideanos de nivel socioeconómico medio (NSM) y bajo (NSB). Los niños realizaron tareas de vocabulario receptivo, producción narrativa (en dos condiciones: manipulando títeres al contar la historia y sin manipularlos), y comprensión narrativa (recuento oral y preguntas posteriores a la reconstrucción). Las narrativas fueron transcritas, codificadas y analizadas en términos de super y macroestructura siguiendo la gramática de historias de Stein y Glenn (1979) (coherencia) y de microestructura (productividad y complejidad). Los niños de ambos grupos tuvieron un desempeño acorde a su edad en comprensión y producción narrativa, a pesar de que el grupo de NSM tuvo un mejor desempeño en vocabulario receptivo. Hubo diferencias en comprensión (cantidad de episodios recuperados y en la respuesta a preguntas) que favorecieron al NSM, pero no en la cantidad de categorías recuperadas ni en la extensión y complejidad del recuento. Para producción narrativa no hubo diferencias en secuencia narrativa, ni en la cantidad de episodios completos en ninguna de las condiciones, pero sí en cuanto a la complejidad sintáctica en la condición sin títeres. Los resultados muestran una relación compleja entre vocabulario y habilidades narrativas, dado que diferencias importantes en vocabulario no se reflejaron de manera homogénea en el desempeño narrativo. Estos resultados aportan a los debates actuales sobre el papel del vocabulario en el desarrollo de habilidades narrativas, así como a pensar la validez ecológica de las evaluaciones en el desarrollo cognitivo y lingüístico.

Abstract Narrative abilities are an important part of communication, academic success, and healthy relationships. These abilities involve complex language and cognitive skills, such as precise vocabulary, control of the coherence markers, relations of cause-effect, and planning. They are also relevant during the elementary school years and interact with the socio-emotional skills necessary to understand different points of view. Oral narrative production develops dramatically from 3 to 5 years of age and is a key factor in a child's ability to communicate about the world. During this period narratives are a product of increasing linguistic sophistication over the preschool period and there is a complex relationship between early narratives and language proficiency. So far, most research about this topic has been pursued in populations other than Latin American preschoolers. At the same time, a considerably lesser number of studies about narrative abilities development have been carried out comparing typically developing children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. To our knowledge, there are no studies in Uruguay that assess the narrative abilities development in typically developing preschool children who grow up in vulnerable contexts. It is therefore of the utmost relevance to produce empirical evidence for this population. For these reasons, this study aimed at characterizing and comparing narrative abilities and receptive vocabulary in a group of a total of 54 Uruguayan preschoolers from different socioeconomic backgrounds (middle and low socioeconomic status, SES). Children were assessed in receptive vocabulary and narrative abilities across two task conditions: (1) narrative comprehension through a story retelling task which included some final questions about the story; (2) narrative production elicited from a set of thematically related puppets. The examiner gives a child a puppet set and asks him/her to elaborate a narrative using them. After that, puppets are removed and the child is asked to retell the story without puppets. Children's oral productions were video-taped and then transcribed and categorized using the ELAN software (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, 2019). The verbal information was categorized according to Stein and Glenn's (1979) story grammar and considering the microstructural aspects (productivity and complexity). Analyses showed that both groups performed according to their stage of development in both narrative task conditions. With regards to the narrative comprehension task, no differences in the number of recovered categories, extension, or narrative complexity were observed. Concerning the narrative production task, there were no differences between the groups in narrative sequences, nor in the number of completed episodes in conditions neither with puppets nor without puppets. Results showed that children who grow up in poverty perform more poorly than their peers from middle-income families in receptive vocabulary, in the number of recovered episodes, ask-answer items of narrative comprehension tasks. Moreover, concerning the microstructural parameters analyses showed that children from middle socioeconomic backgrounds scored better in syntactic complexity in the without puppets condition. No differences between the groups were observed in syntactic complexity in the puppets condition. Taken together these results indicate a complex link between vocabulary and narrative abilities. It is worth noting that important differences in vocabulary did not reflect in the children's narrative performance. These findings are also relevant as a contribution to an ongoing debate about the role of vocabulary in the development of narrative abilities. Furthermore, these results could inform the discussion about the ecological validity of the test of cognitive and linguistic development. Finally, to provide some additional evidence to Uruguayan Spanish language about the relationships between oral language and cognitive development allows to carry out early interventions before formal schooling sets children for success in school and life.

Habilidades prelectoras en niños uruguayos de diferente nivel socioeconómico / Differential pre-literacy skills development in Uruguayan children from different socioeconomic backgrounds

Resumen El objetivo del presente estudio fue comparar las habilidades prelectoras en 50 preescolares uruguayos de 5 años de edad de diferente nivel socioeconómico (NSE) y analizar el impacto de estas habilidades en el aprendizaje de la lectura. Para ello, se evaluó a los niños mediante pruebas de vocabulario receptivo, conciencia fonológica, conocimiento sobre el nombre y el sonido de las letras, y denominación rápida de objetos a fin del nivel preescolar Tiempo 1 (T1). Un año más tarde, se evaluó a un subgrupo de la muestra inicial mediante una prueba de lectura de palabras Tiempo 2 (T2). Los resultados señalaron la existencia de correlaciones significativas entre los predictores (T1) y la lectura de palabras (T2) y entre todas las variables evaluadas y el nivel socioeconómico de los niños. La comparación del desempeño intergrupal señaló la existencia de diferencias significativas en todas las habilidades evaluadas a favor del nivel socioeconómico medio. Sin embargo, el desempeño en la lectura de palabras de ambos grupos fue bajo. Por otra parte, un análisis de regresión mostró que, para los niños de nivel socioeconómico bajo, el nivel de conciencia fonológica fue el que explicó la mayor parte de la varianza en la eficiencia lectora. El nivel de lectura de los niños de nivel socioeconómico medio fue mayormente explicado por el conocimiento del nombre de las letras. Los resultados ponen en evidencia la importancia de atender a las diferencias que se generan temprano en el desarrollo de habilidades lingüísticas fundamentales para aprender a leer.

Abstract Learning to read transforms lives. Reading contributes to knowledge acquisition, cultural engagement, and success in the school. The unequal distribution of literacy skills in a society is associated with economic and social inequalities as a result, children with a poor foundation in literacy before entering formal schooling are more likely to struggle academically and to drop out of school. For these reasons, there has been an intense scientific interest for decades in understanding how children learn to read. It is well established that in the early stages of reading development, phonological awareness, letter name-sounds knowledge, and the naming speed are three independent longitudinal predictors of children's later word-reading skills in alphabetic-writing systems. Phonological awareness constitutes the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of their own language, meanwhile letter knowledge promotes the discovery of systematic relationships between writing and oral language. As early readers develop some level of phonological awareness and some level of letter knowledge, they can recognize written words through phonological recoding processes, in which graphemes are recoded as phonemes and assembled to pronounce words. In addition, rapid naming expresses the speed at which phonological information is accessed from a graphic label. Phonological processing and letter knowledge are powerfully affected by the experience, stimulation, and support that children receive before beginning formal education. Most children acquire these abilities relatively effortlessly during early childhood. However, there is a significant number of children in Latin America who experience difficulties in their pre-literacy skills development. This study examined the cognitive profiles of a total of 50 Uruguayan preschoolers from different socioeconomic backgrounds from two public schools in Montevideo, Uruguay. Twenty-six children from low-income households were compared to peers from middle-income. At the end of the pre-schooling period (time 1) receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter name-sounds knowledge, and object naming speed tests were administered to children. One year later (time 2), word -reading of a subgroup of children was measured. Significant correlations were observed between all predictors at time 1; between predictors at time 1 and word reading at time 2; and between all measured abilities and socioeconomic status. Comparative analysis between children of different socioeconomic status showed that children growing up in poverty contexts performed more poorly than their peers from middle-income families in all the tests. Nonetheless, both groups performed poorly in word reading. Descriptive statistics indicated that, out of a total of 26 words, low SES children correctly read a total of 7 words per minute, and medium SES children a total of 14 words. Finally, regression analyses indicated that phonological awareness contributed 30 % variance in predicting the total score achieved in a reading-word test in children of low-income families, meanwhile letter name knowledge contributed 74 % variance in predicting the total score achieved in a reading-word test in their peers from middle-income families. In general terms, results of pre-reading skills and reading performance seem to indicate that children of different socioeconomic status use different word recognition strategies according to their level of letter-knowledge of and phonological processing. Discussion considers international literature pointing out that children who enter elementary school with limited reading-related skills are unlikely to be able to keep pace with their peers. These findings warn about the importance to elaborate systematic and high-quality educational proposals to try to reduce the gap in reading development for children from low-income families. Developing literacy and language skills before formal schooling sets a child up for success in school and life. Results also suggest the importance of analyzing the variables that affect reading development in populations that are not the majority described.

Influencia del comportamiento del niño en el hogar, en la consulta odontológica / Correlation between child's behavior at home and about odontological consultation

Un estudio observacional descriptivo de correlación fue realizado para demostrar la relación existente entre la conducta del niño en el hogar con respecto a la consulta odontológica.Para este estudio se tomó como universo la Clínica Odontológica Santa Mónica de la E.C.M donde se recolectó una muestra de 100 niños por disponibilidad,en edades comprendidas entre los 5-12 años sin discriminar su sexo.Los datos fueron obtenidos por medio de una encuesta y observación durante la consulta.Se utilizó para probar significacncia el coeficiente de contingencia,el cual se establece por medio de la prueba Chi2 se realizaron ciertas relaciones para determinar la verdadera asociación de las variables.Los resultados muestran una gran relación entre la conducta del niño en el hogar y la conducta del niño en la consulta,a medida que la edad del infante aumenta.