Language and Socio-emotional Development
Introduction
The development process of children begins at a very early stage. During the early years, children learn most of the things through experience. It is this early development that determines the future life of children when they become teenagers and adults. The article highlights that children who begin life in a good start are more likely to be more competent than those who don’t receive a good start to life. The authors believe that promoting healthy growth in children greatly improves children’s long-term opportunities. Although a significant investment in education for school-aged children and above is crucial, the focus has shifted to children between one year and five years. Research shows that early interventions increase the chances of positive development among young children.
The Norwegian government has implemented the Norwegian childcare system, which aims to provide equal development to all children from different backgrounds. The system particularly allows young children to interact and develop their language and intellectual skills. The development of language skills is important during the early stages of childhood. Literature reveals a positive connection between the amount of communication, early exposure to language, and language development. The current study aims at investigating the chances that children with language problems receive special education in the Norwegian childcare system. The researchers also aim to establish the degree at which children with language problems are identified and given special care in the system. Although the study does not state the hypothesis, it can be extracted from the research question. The null hypothesis can be stated as: Children with language problems do not have greater chances of getting special education support.
Methods
Participants
The participants in the study perfectly align with the purpose of the study. As the purpose of the study is to evaluate the chances of children with language problems getting specialized support, the study recruited children as participants. The research included 2779 children in Norway. The children are drawn from the Norwegian childcare system. Apart from the children, parents, and childcare staff were recruited to help in providing answers regarding children’s development. Specifically, childcare teachers answered questions about childcare centers and children’s development. Differently, questions regarding family characteristics were answered by parents. The selected sample was representative of the children population in Norway. The childcare centers selected to participate were drawn from across the country. All sizes of centers were included. The centers were drawn from small, medium, and large cities. The participating children are aged 4-5 years. Although the study tried as much to have a sample that is representative of the entire population, selective selection could not be avoided completely. Could there be a possibility that the participating parents have a different education level compared to the national education levels of parents?
Materials
Questionnaires are used to collect the required data. The questions in the questionnaires have a scale in which the teacher or parent rates the development skills of the child. To measure language problems, the study utilized the principal component analysis (PCA). The tool is considered reliable in detecting language problem with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96.
Study Design
The study utilized an online survey that was conducted in 2015 on children aged between 4-5 years currently included in the Norwegian childcare system. The study utilized the following measures. First, childcare support at the childcare center was used to measure the chances that children with language problems received special education. The teachers answered the question of whether a child could decide whether he/she needs special education or not. Secondly, children’s development was measured using several variables. The variables included language problems and behavior problems. Other included variables are parent’s education levels, special support in childcare centers, and immigrant background. The research design provides adequate ground to answer the research hypothesis. The data collected serves the purpose of answering the hypothesis.
A logistical regression analysis was carried out to establish the relationship between variables. Since the study reported several confounding variables, the analysis model was adjusted to take care of the effects of the confounders. The data analysis process was affected by missing data. Although the authors report that less than 3% of the data missed, they utilized an accepted method to replace the missing data. They used the multiple imputation method to replace missing data. The authors confirmed the correctness of the results from data analysis by carrying out a list-wise deletion.
Results
After the data analysis process, the authors presented the following descriptive statistics results. Among the participating sample of 2779 children, 15.9% were found to be having language problems. Again, the proportion of children with behavior problems was almost the same as that of children with language problems. There were 15.6% of children with behavior issues. The children who received special support in the childcare centers accounted for 3.8% of the sample. A comparison of boys and girls found out that more boys received support than girls.
The regression analysis provided the following results. First, there was a relationship between the parent level of education and extra support in childcare centers. With the odds ratio between 3.59 and 10.75, it is revealed that there is a statistically significant correlation between language problems, behavior problems, and higher chances of getting special education. Second regression analysis including all covariate shows that the relationship is still significant. The results from a final analysis found that girls with language problems had a higher chance of getting special education than boys. Conversely, boys with behavior problems had higher chances of getting special education than girls. The results presented by the study have a clear connection with the study questions. The results are statistically significant and can thus be used to make conclusions about the likelihood of children receiving special support in childcare centers.
Discussion
The authors provide conclusions that are consistent with the results from data analysis. They conclude that children’s development skills are predictors of receiving specialized education at childcare centers. The conclusion is drawn from the revelation that language and behavior problems are closely connected to increased chances of receiving specialized support in childcare centers. The study further explains that children might be in the same childcare center but have different chances of receiving extra support based on their levels of language and behavior problems. The paper also highlights the difference between boys and girls. Girls with language problems have higher chances of receiving extra support as compared to boys. On the contrary, boys with behavior problems are at higher risk of getting special education than their girls’ counterparts. The conclusion is consistent with other research carried out in Norway. The other research found that girls are generally involved in language activities in school than boys. This explains why girls with language problems are at higher risk of getting special education. The strength of the study is rooted in the size of the sample size. The large sample size utilized is statistically sufficient to generalize. Its strength is also based on the use of two different methods to control for bias. Besides its strengths, the study is without limitations. They include a lack of observation of child development. The study relied on teacher reports. There was also a low response rate on the part of parents. Finally, the data on special support outside childcare centers were not included since they could not be found. The findings of the study lay the ground for further research studies. Future research can include data from outside the childcare centers. The development process of children happens both in school and outside the school specifically ate home.