A sociolinguistic portrait of German preschoolers with a limited phonological short-term memory

Introduction:

Phonological short-term memory (PSTM) has been shown to be one of the most important innate skills for the acquisition of both first and second language. In this study, a sample of German preschoolers was examined in respect to the distribution of the PSTM test scores depending on ethnic background and other demographic/sociolinguistic characteristics of the children and regions they lived in.

Methods:

A total of 2,052 four- and five-year-old preschoolers (54% male; 47% monolingual Germans, 42% bi/multilingual children, 11% unknown) were examined with the language test “Kindersprachscreening” including questionnaires for parents and kindergarten teachers. Geolinguistic analyses were carried out for Frankfurt/Main with a subsample of 892 children. Associations between PSTM results and demographic/sociolinguistic variables were examined by univariate analyses.

Results:

Lowest PSTM scores were found in the subgroups of children speaking Turkish and Arabic. Children with low PSTM scores lived in Frankfurt districts with a high percentage of immigrants (especially, Africans and Turks, but not Italians), unemployed persons, as well as inhabitants of lower income, lower educational level, and limited access to medical services.

Conclusions:

Limited PSTM co-occurred with limited contact to the German language and was unevenly distributed in respect to region. Frankfurt districts with the lowest PSTM scores were those with the most unfavorable demographic/sociolinguistic language acquisition conditions that can be summarized as insufficient quality and quantity of German language input.

Publication History

Publication Date:
23 April 2019 (online)