Pragmatic language development and educational style in neglected children

Abstract

This paper analyzes the pragmatic competence of children in residential care and the relation between the parents' educational style and the level of pragmatic dominion of 74 children aged between 6 and 18 in 4 residential child care centers in Extremadura. We apply the ‘Objective Language Criteria Test’ (BLOC-Screening) to evaluate their linguistic development and the ‘Autoevaluative Multifactorial Child Adaptation Test’ (TAMAI) to determine educational style. The presence of difficulties in pragmatics is evident. The children with a low dominion of pragmatics perceive a more restrictive and punitive style in the mother and a high affective rejection in the father. The children have difficulties empathizing with others, especially when they are interacting with adults; they have very little skill in showing disagreement before an authority figure; and they use their previous experience to make inferences about the actions or intentions of other people. We verify the need to implant programs designed to stimulate and reorganize the children's language.

Introduction

One of the primordial rights of children is to have a family to take care of their basic needs and to give them affection and social support. Nevertheless, if there is any disruption in the child's interaction with his/her environment during the basic development process, that is, in the first years of infancy, or if the balance between the child's needs and the adult's gratification is not well balanced, a series of disorders of a different nature and intensity can appear in the child (Bluestone and Tamis-LeMonda, 1999, Espina et al., 2001, Repetti et al., 2002). The family, as the basic social context, should satisfy both the child's basic affective and educational needs (Del Rio, 2003); it should be a place of stability where he/she feels protected against the aggressive situations of the world in which she/he is growing up, and where the child should receive adequate care, etc.

Assuming that the fundamental aspects for a child's development are those of a biological, cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social nature; a child deprived of affection, or who receives distorted affection, will suffer damage in many areas of his/her development. Several papers on child abuse (Gaudin et al., 1996, González et al., 2001, Martínez and De Paúl, 1993, Ruiz and Gallardo, 2002) stress the importance of the following psychological consequences of neglect: among others, important deficiencies in language development, a lack of self-confidence, retarded development, social incompetence, impulsiveness, deficiencies in the use of ordinary language, speech disorders, an incapacity to generalize and think in the abstract, difficulties to control their impulses before the least social pressure or problem, psycho-affective instability, etc.

Several studies stress the effects of child abuse on linguistic competence (Allen and Wasserman, 1985, Augoustinos, 1987, Kelley et al., 1993), one of the most important things being carried out in 1989 by Cicchetti and Carlson (1989). These authors mention, among other consequences of abuse, the linguistic repercussions. Urquiza and Winn, 1994, López, 1995, Rycus and Hughes, 1998, all stress the need to evaluate the linguistic development of children who, as a consequence of neglect, have been institutionalized. Fernández and Fuertes (2000) stress the fact that, between the ages of 6 and 18, children who are in residential care have deficiencies at both a cognitive and linguistic level: difficulties to solve problems, disoriented thoughts and perceptions, delayed linguistic development, poor vocabulary, academic problems, attention span and concentration difficulties and a low resistance to frustration, etc. Kettinger and Harringon (2003) stress the effects of neglect and child abuse, produced by substance abuse in the mothers, on the linguistic development of their children. Moreno, 2003, Moreno, 2005 concludes that, of the different forms of child abuse, emotional neglect is the one that most impairs linguistic development. Nair et al., 2003, Amorós and Palacios, 2004 emphasize the fact that linguistic difficulties in children suffering abuse can take very different forms. Dowsett, Huston, Imes, and Gennetian (2008) stress the effects of a lack of affection and an inadequate parental educational style on the child's linguistic development.

Some studies carried out in recent years in the Spanish context (Moreno et al., 2006, Moreno, García-Baamonde & Rabazo, 2007, Moreno et al., 2008, Moreno et al., 2009, Moreno et al., 2010, Moreno and García-Baamonde, 2009) have shown evidence that certain family attitudes, such as a lack of affection or physical wellbeing, indifference to a child's demands and initiatives looking for attention, a lack of communication, hostility, contempt, intolerance, rejection, neglect and the hindering of the child's autonomous development (physical, emotional and intellectual), all have a considerable effect on language acquisition and development, which can be seen in the child's serious difficulties with pragmatics.

Pragmatics is related with the early development of social interaction. It is a process of social development in which the necessary knowledge for successfully interacting with other people through language is accumulated. This skill is not acquired suddenly; the child needs to develop such skills as the ability to process information from different sources, an adequate linguistic development, the capacity to respond to social demands, etc.

In this study, on referring to children in residential care as a means of protection, we must take into account the importance that relationships with their previous carers may have had. The type of affection, the reactions of the adults and the experiences the child has lived through, can all be used to develop this competence (Cantero, 2003, Laible and Thompson, 1998).

If the adult is sensitive to the child's signals, strong affective bonds will be developed and the children will be able to maintain adequate relationships, they will have a positive self esteem and they will feel socially competent. On the other hand, if the adult does not respond, or does so in an inconsistent manner, the child will feel insecure and mistrustful of the relationship. This kind of disorganized affective bond is frequent in cases of neglect. Such carers have problems showing affection (they give contradictory messages, fail to answer, or answer inadequately to the child's signals), and there is often an incorrect interpretation of the intended communicative meaning of the child's actions which may seriously affect his/her language acquisition (Lyons-Ruth, Bronfman, & Parsons, 1999).

Interaction within the family reinforces and redirects the child's use of language, leading him/her progressively to a correct use (Reed, 1995). However, the use of language implies that one considers the other to be a person who thinks and has beliefs and intentions that need to be taken into account in order to establish communication, as well as the way in which the said communication will take place. The quality and frequency of the interaction are related to the type of bond. Matychuk (2005) stresses the importance of language aimed at children as a crucial catalyst in the process of language acquisition and development. Language often becomes the mediating instrument of interaction between the child and the adult. However, children learn to speak with significant time differences from one to another (Rondal, Esperet, Gombert, Thibaut, & Comblain, 2003). His could be explained by the influence of several factors related with the atmosphere within the family, the characteristics of the adults' affection or the child's own nature.

Research has analyzed the pragmatic competence and the parents' educational style of children in residential care, yet these studies provide no specific data on how the pragmatic component in such children is affected (Amorós and Palacios, 2004, Fernández and Fuertes, 2000, Nair et al., 2003). This research, therefore, aims to analyze the pragmatic competence of children in residential care in the region; and to determine the relation between the level of pragmatic dominion in children in care and the parents' educational style.