The growth of speaker and listener skills from five to eleven years

Abstract

The development of children's ability to become effective speakers and listeners once they have acquired language has been widely investigated using the referential communication paradigm. However, there has not been a systematic investigation of these abilities across the entire primary school age range. Given the importance of oral information in the classroom, the facility with which children encode and decode messages autonomously needs to be known. A balanced sample, with respect to age, sex and socio-economic status (SES), of 578 children (5-11 years) was given a 35-item test of speaker and listener skills using a variety of pictorial material. Results, which were scored using a response coding scheme, showed that the ability to respond as listeners to accurate messages was generally good, but significant improvement took place between 5 and 8 years. Speaker skills and listener skills were closely correlated, although only when the message received was ambiguous and required missing information to be sought. Average performance was initially at a low level (10% at 5 years, 18% at 6 years) and did not reach the 50% level of success until 9 years. Even by the end of the primary school period, accuracy was less than 70% of the possible score. Significant differences as a function of age and SES, but not sex, are reported. The reasons for, and the practical implications of, the protracted growth of these pragmatic skills are discussed.