Browsing by Author "Kuusela, Saana"

Aims. There are many individual, hereditary and environmental factors affecting children’s language development. However, there are relatively few studies studying background factors related to preschool-aged Finnish children’s language development. The aim of this study is to study the possible effect of background factors to language development of preschool-aged children. Background factors included to this study are gender, familial risk of dyslexia and education of parents. Methods. The data is part of the LEINIKKI study data. The participants (n = 50) were healthy, Finnish-speaking children aged 3;2–4;0. Participants were evaluated with LEINIKKI method, Reynell Developmental Language Scales and LUKIVA method’s subtest for familial dyslexia. Group differences were analyzed for each of the background factors by descriptive statics and Mann-Whitney test. Finally, all the variables were analyzed together with a linear regression model. Results and conclusions. Gender was statistically significantly correlating with language skills. Preschool-aged boys had weaker overall language skills and receptive language skills. In this study, risk for familiar dyslexia or parents’ education wasn’t affecting the language skills of the child. The explanatory power of the linear regression model was weak suggesting that there are also many other additional variables affecting the language development of the children in this age. The results of this study suggest that boys’ language development should be paid attention to. In this study, familial risk for dyslexia didn’t affect to chldren’s language skills. It seems that in Finland, education of parents isn’t as strongly correlated to preschool-aged healthy children’s language development as reported in international research. In addition to the background factors studied in this study, there seems to be also many other background factors that affect children’s language development in preschool age. Further studies on these background factors are needed to gain deeper understanding of children’s language development in preschool age.