Lexical errors in schoolars: the influence of type of school and parents' educational level

• Grant number: 12/10440-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2012
• End date: July 31, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Débora Maria Befi-Lopes
• Grantee: Lígia de Gaia Azevedo de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina (FM). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The lexical acquisition can be influenced by a series of factors that are external to the child, besides intrinsic aspects. Research findings show that socioeconomic status (SES) might influence children's language abilities. Parental educational level, an important index of SES, correlates with children's vocabulary acquisition: parents with low educational levels usually provide their children with lower stimulation and it is possible to identify differences in vocabulary performance of children from different SES even before admission to preschools. Furthermore, research findings show that children from private schools present better performance than their peers from public schools on lexical abilities. The majority of these studies analyze the overall correct responses, but very few explore the types of errors. This study aims to analyze the quality of semantic representations of children from different SES through the analysis of errors. The objectives are to analyze the type of lexical errors presented by typically developing children and to explore whether it depends on the type of school (public and private), grade, and educational level of the parents. We will analyze the type of lexical errors of 193 children who were attending the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades of public and private schools in São Paulo, with ages varying from 6:0 to 8:11 (years: months).(AU)