Socioeconomic disparities in the comprehension of lexical categories: A study with Spanish-speaking Argentinian toddlers

Abstract

This study documents the effects of social inequality on different dimensions of lexical comprehension in Spanish-speaking Argentinian toddlers, a population in which socioeconomic differences are more striking than in previously studied populations. Using a performance-based forced-choice lexical recognition task implemented on a tablet, an adaptation of the Computerized Comprehension Task (CCT; Friend and Keplinger. Journal of Child Language, 35(01), 77-98. 2003), recognition accuracy and haptic response time to nouns, verbs, and adjectives were assessed. Low and middle (socioeconomic status) SES toddlers (N = 113) were tested at the daycares they attended. Results of the regression analyses showed overall SES effects on recognition accuracy but not on response time. Further analyses that considered the lexical category identified that middle SES children were only more accurate on the recognition of nouns and adjectives but not verbs. Findings also indicated that while low SES children showed longer response times to adjectives than to the other lexical categories, middle SES response times were longer in the case of verbs. The discussion links SES differences in children performance to previous evidence regarding the characteristics of both groups of children’s linguistic experiences in the ebb and flow of everyday life.