Speech function as a measure of egocentrism in preschool children of low socioeconmic class

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of socioeconomic class, age, sex, and bilingualism on the progression of speech development from egocentrism toward socialization. Piaget's (1969) method of assessing egocentrism and socialization through functional analysis of speech sample in determining socialization lags in preschool children was utilized. Speech samples were collected for thirty children in the three, four, and five year old rage and the remarks of each child were categorized according to Piaget's (1969) classification system as either egocentric or social. A coefficient of egocentrism was computer for each child to evaluate his social orientation. Coefficients of egocentrism for the children from a lower socioeconomic group were compared with those established by Piaget (1969) and corroborated by Jensen (1971). The coefficients of egocentrism were utilized in determining the significance of the socioeconomic variable. A t-test comparison between the means of coefficients of egocentrism for the investigator's group of three and four year old children and those obtained by Jensen (1971) were calculated to determine the significance of the socioeconomic variable. The results indicate a significant difference for three year olds with a t-score significant at the .05 level of probability and significant at the .01 level of probability for the four year olds. The mean coefficient of egocentrism for the three year old group was greater than the coefficient of the four and five year old groups. The F-ratio was significant at the .0004 level of probability. One way analysis of variance indicated variance in egocentrism accounted for the combinations, bilingualism, sex, and age was primarily determined to be age related. A correlation was computed to determine the significance of the relationship between the age and egocentrism. The r value was significant at the.01 level of probability and indicated an inverse relationship between age and the coefficient of egocentrism. The influence of sex and bilingualism were not statistically significant. The findings indicated the Piaget's method of evaluation identified a significant difference in coefficients of egocentrism for lower socioeconomic group children, but not in the predicted direction. The study was limited by the small sample size and the age range evaluated. Areas for further study were identified.