A meta-analysis of the relationship between children's language ability and socio-emotional development [아동의 언어능력과 사회정서발달의 관계에 관한 메타분석]

Abstract

Objectives: Socio-emotion has important implications for child development. Language ability is closely related with socio-emotional development. This paper reviews studies of the relationship between language ability and socio-emotional development, and investigates the correlations between them and between their sub domains. Language ability is composed of receptive and expressive language and emergent literacy. Socio-emotional development includes externalizing and internalizing behaviors, social skills, and self-regulation. Methods: Twelve studies which meet the inclusive criteria were selected from 9 electronic databases (Academic Search Complete, PsycINFO, ERIC, PubMed, CINAHL Plus, ScienceDirect, RISS, DBpia, Kyobo Scholar). A systematic review of literature was carried out using meta-analysis (Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 2 [CMA2]). Effect sizes were calculated using Fisher' Z. Results: There was a significant correlation between the two variables as a whole. In particular, there were significant correlations between receptive language and self-regulation, between expressive language and internalizing behavior, and between emergent literacy and self-regulation. However no significant correlation was found between all sub domains of language ability and externalizing behavior. Conclusion: These results suggest that language intervention methods need to be developed in order to decrease negative socio-emotions and to enhance positive ones. © 2019 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.