Speech Understanding by Children Diagnosed with Delayed Verbal Development in the Context of Family Functioning

Abstract

The assumptions of the own research presented in the article refer to the socio-interactive approach that assumes that learning and proper language acquisition by a child require cognitive activity, proper progress in cognitive development, and active - resulting from social relations - observation of adult speech. The research assumptions also take into account the importance of the autoregulatory function of language and systemic understanding of the concept of family. The aim of the study was to check the presence of the relationship between speech understanding by children with delayed verbal development and the various dimensions of their family functioning and ego-resiliency of parents. The study included a group of 72 well-cognitively functioning Polish children aged 5-7 with a diagnosis of delayed verbal development and their families selected using random and nonprobability sampling. The children were examined using the Polish Picture Vocabulary Test – Comprehension - version A (PPVT-C). Functioning of the families of the examined children was operationalized by the results of FACES IV by D. Olson (the Polish version of the scale was used); while the Ego Resiliency Scale was used to study resilience. The results of the conducted research indicate, among others, that families of children with lower scores on speech understanding present less favorable functioning profiles in the scope of selected dimensions of FACES -IV: Family Communication, Cohesion, Disengaged and Family Satisfaction. However, the relationship between the child's understanding of speech and other demographic variables such as parent's age, parent's gender, parent's education, marital status has not been confirmed. It was recognized that the results of the research will allow in the future to optimize the therapeutic services offered to children with verbal development disorders and their families in their natural environment, as well as to allow the presentation of appropriate strategies to support speech development (especially speech understanding abilities) in children. The creation of a group representing a certain type of language disorder will allow a better adaptation of the training program to the specific difficulties experienced by a child, as well as allow for more effective involvement of parents in preventive measures.

Keywords

• verbal development, child's understanding of speech, family functioning, ego-resiliency