Pragmatic abilities are language skills which we use in concrete circumstances or context when we talk or interact with other people. These abilities are taking initiative to speak, response on this initiative, speaking itself, use of gestures, moves, understanding of speech. Pragmatic language development takes very important part in development of speech, language and communication.
In this study we analysed pragmatic abilities in preschool children from 18 to 47 months of age. This study shows age and gender differences in pragmatic abilities between children.
Pragmatic abilities were tested with questionnaire called Language use inventory – LUI (O'Neill, 2009) which assesses pragmatic language development in children from 18 to 47 months of age. At the Faculty of Education we translated the questionnaire and this is the first adaptation of the questionnaire into slovenian language. The author of the questionnaire is Daniela K. O'Neill, canadian psychologist, professor of developmental psychology. Her research has focused on the interplay between children’s developing understanding of mind and their communicative development.
The questionnaire is quite extensive, for this reason the sample was small, it included 44 children from central Slovenia. It was taken by child's parents. The sample was purposive, because it included children 18 to 47 months of age.
In the theoretic part of our study we described pragmatics, speech and language development, which includes pragmatic development and pragmatic disorders. In the empiric part of our study the results showed that girls got better scores than boys, but there were no significant differences. The group of children who were older (31-47 months of age) were better in pragmatic abilities than the group of younger children (18-30 months of age).
With this study we adapted the questionnaire LUI – Language use inventory for Slovenian popoulation and acquired data about pragmatic development in preschool children. This questionnaire certainly is an important contribution for evaluating pragmatic abilities in children.
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