Abstract:
The purpose of the study was to obtain normative data on the Assessment of Children's Language Comprehension (ACLC) devised in 1969 by Carol R. Foster, Jane J. Giddan, and Joel Stark. A comparison of scores of Caucasian children and Negro children was wade to determine if there was a significant difference between these two groups as far as language reception scores were concerned. Observations were also made of the language scores received by subjects from different socio-economic backgrounds to see if this might have a bearing on the child's acquisition of language.Since the ACLC is an experimental edition of a newly devised test, little data has been compiled concerning normal children of varying backgrounds. Therefore, the results of this study will aid in compiling such data on two different groups of children. It will also be an asset In the future for establishing reliability and validity of the test.The ACLC was administered to forty children. Of these, eleven Caucasian children and seven Negro children were selected for the study according to age, intelligence quotient, socio-economic background, and initial vocabulary score received on the ACLC. Subjects were four and five year old children from two pre-school programs sponsored by the YWCA. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was administered to derive an intelligence quotient on all the children. Children with intelligence quotients ranging from 71 to 111 were chosen as subjects. The Index of Status Characteristics was used to classify the socio-economic background of the children. The criterion used were: l. occupation of the breadwinner; 2.source of income; 3.house size and type; and 4.area lived in or education of the breadwinner. After the children were defined and classified, the ACLC was administered. Those children receiving an initial score of forty-six or more on the vocabulary section of the ACLC were chosen as subjects. The language scores of these eighteen subjects were compiled and the score,§ statistically compared to determine whether significant differences resulted from submitting these two groups of children to the ACLC.