Author Information
Eugen Zaretsky, Marburg University, GermanyChristiane Hey, Marburg University Hospital, Germany
Abstract
The development of children’s German language skills can be influenced not only by sociodemographic and medical characteristics of their families (e.g., predisposition for language impairments) but also by geolinguistic characteristics of their neighborhood (e.g., educational level, percentage of migrants). In the current study, German language competence of German preschoolers was scrutinized under consideration of geolinguistic characteristics of the regions or districts where they lived. A total of 525 five- to six-year-old children underwent a school enrolment examination in the German states of Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. Their German language skills were quantified by the test SOPESS (“Social pediatric screening of developmental status for school entry”) in public health departments. Ordinal results of the linguistic subtest (from 1 “insufficient” to 5 “excellent”) were correlated with 66 geolinguistic variables, that is, sociodemographic characteristics of the regions or districts where these children lived. Among other things, children with better German language skills resided in the regions/districts with a lower percentage of migrants and foreigners, less persons living under conditions of poverty, less unemployed, more living area per person, more households with a high income, more children attending kindergartens and prestigious grammar schools. Children with better German language skills lived in the regions/districts with a comparatively high income, high educational level, and high percentage of non-migrants. Consequently, they received German language input of a comparatively high quality from their peers and adults. The quantity of the German language input was also high due to the attendance of kindergartens.
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