Poster #107 - Exploring the Complex Relationship Between SES and Vocabulary in Grade School

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

Background. Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) homes have significantly smaller vocabularies on average than their higher SES peers, leading to long-term academic and economic inequities (Hart & Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2006). While differences in the quantity and quality of language exposure in the home accounts for much of this relationship early on (Hoff, 2006), this vocabulary gap increases during the school years (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Stahl & Stahl, 2004). What remains unknown are what factors contribute to this growing disparity. We argue that in grade school the path to vocabulary growth is multifaceted, including factors related to both maternal education, income, the child’s school, their reading abilities and their ability to learn new words from context. The aim of the current investigation is to identify how these factors contribute to the growing vocabulary gap between low and higher income children in grade school.

Methods. 223 children (8-15 years) completed a battery of language and cognitive assessments, including measures of vocabulary (PPVT-4th edition), working memory (digit span), reading comprehension (GORT), and a word learning from context task in which children had to identify the meaning of unknown words using only the surrounding linguistic context (Maguire et al., 2018; Abel, Schneider & Maguire, 2018). Parents completed a survey about the child’s race, ethnicity, language history, family income, mother’s education, and stress in the home (CHAOS). To provide some measure of the child’s academic school environment we identified the average score on the Texas state standardized reading test (STARR) for each child’s school for his or her grade at the time of testing. Although this measure is problematic on an individual level, on the group level it may provide some indication of the average level of reading instruction (below, at, or above grade level) in the child’s school.

Analysis. To clarify the relationship between SES (maternal education and income) and vocabulary (PPVT) in grade school we used the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2013) to specify this serial multiple mediator model with ordinary least squares path analysis (see Figure 1) controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, race, and bilingualism.

Results. Our findings reveal two significant paths between SES and vocabulary in grade school. The first is a direct path between maternal education and vocabulary. Along the second path, income (measured as eligibility for free or reduced lunch) predicts vocabulary through the mediating factors of the child’s school’s reading scores, reading comprehension, and ability to learn new words from context. Taken together, these factors account for 68% of the variability in the relationship between SES and vocabulary.

Conclusions. These findings reveal a complex system of factors that work together to influence the growing vocabulary gap in the school years. Importantly, they highlight the continued influence of maternal education on vocabulary size even when the children are in school. They also shed new light on how income predicts differences in the child’s educational setting which in turn predicts differences in cognitive factors that contribute to vocabulary growth, including reading comprehension and word learning from context.

Authors

• Julie M. Schneider, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Sonali Poudel, The University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mandy J Maguire, University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author