The Relationship of Language to Social Development

The child's social development is profoundly influenced by his language development. Through language he not only expresses his thoughts and feelings to others, but he understands something of their thoughts, feelings, and desires. Language thus enables the child to understand others and gives him a ready means of influencing their behavior. It helps him in the development of social concepts of more complex and abstract nature. Anyone can observe the great amount of talk or conversation in a group of pre-school children at play, even though much of it may relate to the speaker and his exploits. At the earliest pre-school age, language is not the child's usual means of initiating contacts with others, nor is it the most common means at the age of five or six. Some object or activity of common interest is much more likely to be used to bring about social contacts. Only in later years of childhood and more particularly in adolescence does language hold a relatively important place in making social contacts. It is, however, a very important means of maintaining them, even during the pre-school years. On countless occasions parents and teachers have observed children trying to hold attention by asking questions, by telling about events, or by other conversational efforts.

Social Attitudes of Pre-School Children

Socially indifferent children are rare, however, at the age of four or five years. A few may be observed who seem almost lacking in social perception, and whose behavior is very little influenced by the activities of others. Mental ability has some effect on this characteristic. We have seen feebleminded children ten to twelve years of age who seemed to give no sign of being aware of the presence or activity of other persons. At the very bottom of the scale of intelligence there are always children whose social behavior is practically zero.

Social dependence or social independence may be quite marked in pre-school children, although most youngsters possess this trait in some degree intermediate between the extremes. The social dependence or independence of a child is probably the result of his training, and experience more than of any other factors. We have observed many children in kindergartens of city public schools and in free kindergartens maintained by charitable and philanthropic organizations and have seen timid children lose much of their timidity in groups and develop leadership in group activities. The child on whom satisfactions are bestowed because of his submissiveness, who is threatened into frequent yielding, or who is given no opportunities for spontaneous and voluntary action, is likely to be dependent. When these circumstances operate in the opposite manner, independence results. Since most children receive these stimulations in an intermediate degree, they are neither strikingly dependent nor independent, or else they show these characteristics differently in various particular situations.