The socio-emotional development of language-minority children entering primary school in Ireland

Abstract

Socio-emotional development is increasingly recognised as playing a central role in children’s academic achievement. However, little is known about the socio-emotional development of language-minority children on entry to school and how these children fare in comparison to their language-majority peers. To address this gap, longitudinal data on the socio-emotional outcomes of language-minority children in Ireland at five years of age were analysed. Teacher ratings on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) indicated comparable outcomes for language-minority and language-majority children upon entry into formal schooling. Further, language-minority children with poor English vocabulary skills were rated more favourably by their teachers than language-majority peers with poor English vocabulary skills, and, language-minority children had better teacher ratings on the SDQ when important child and family factors were taken into account in regression modelling. These findings support an emerging body of literature reporting positive socio-emotional development for young language-minority children. However, advantages associated with learning two or more languages may not be conferred as the child progresses through school if poorer vocabulary skills in the majority language are not addressed early. Educators may be able to capitalise on the positive socio-emotional outcomes reported here when working with language-minority children to support literacy in the majority language.

Keywords:

• socio-emotional outcomes
• language-minority children
• entry to primary school
• vocabulary skills

Acknowledgements

The Growing Up in Ireland data have been funded by the Government of Ireland through the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and have been collected under the Statistics Act, 1993, of the Central Statistics Office. The authors would like to thank the project and study team at the ESRI and TCD who designed and implemented the GUI study. The authors would also like to thank Therese Farrell for her comments on the paper.

Notes on contributors

Dr Sinéad McNally is Assistant Professor in Psychology at the Institute of Education at DCU, specialising in early childhood development. Her research interests are socio-emotional and language development in early childhood, child development in early childhood care and education settings, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Dr Merike Darmody is a Research Officer at the Economic and Social Research Institute. While working mainly in the area of education, she is also interested in broader issues of the relationship between an individual and society.

Dr Jean Quigley is Assistant Professor in Psychology and Co-Director of the Infant and Child Research Laboratory in the School of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin. Her research interests are in language development, with particular reference to early first language acquisition and to neurodevelopmental disorders, including Autism Spectrum Disorders.

ORCID

Sinéad McNally http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9501-2535

Merike Darmody http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3264-8031

Jean Quigley http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0469-5199