PRAGMATIC AND COMMUNICATION ABILITIES OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
Original Scientific Article
Abstract
In our region, the largest amount of research deals with structural aspects of language and pragmatic abilities in children of a typical population. Pragmatics is considered the last aspect of language to be developed and is highly interdependent with other aspects of language. The research aims to highlight the difference in pragmatics, communication abilities, and other structural aspects of language in terms of gender and age. It was designed as a cross-sectional study and conducted in the preschool institution "Pčelica" in Sremska Mitrovica, while the questionnaires were also distributed through social networks. Consent for the research was obtained from the preschool director in Sremska Mitrovica as well as from the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine in Novi Sad. The sample consists of 103 respondents. ANOVA test was used to test age differences in pragmatic abilities and structural aspects of language. The results show significant difference in structural abilities depending on the age, leading to variance between all three groups. The older the children are, the better they perform when it comes to the structural aspects of language. When it comes to pragmatic abilities, the difference is statistically significant only between children aged six and younger groups. No differences in pragmatic abilities were observed between four- and five-year-old children. As for gender differences, boys achieved better results when it comes to pragmatic and communicative abilities and other structural aspects of language, but this difference was not statistically significant.
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