Document Type : Research

Authors

• Tayebe Khosh bakht ¹
• Mohammad Zya Hosini ²
• Farideh Haghbin ³
• Shahin Nematzade ³

¹ Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch of Tehran,

² Associate Professor and Faculty Member of Allameh Tabatabaei University Linguistics Department

³ Alzahra University

Abstract

The study of children´s mental processes is not possible except by studying its manifestations. The narration of a story – as an external manifestation- can be good evidence of a child’s prior (background) knowledge and language abilities. Experience shows that children exposed to adequate and appropriate interaction with their mothers have more mental abilities in comparison with those who are poorer in this area. Accordingly, assessing existence or lack of correlation between the interactive input from mothers with the richness of content schemas formed in a child´s mind and also with a child´s language abilities in narration, is the goal of this research. The research is descriptive (specifically correlational). Data collection has been made in the first academic semester of 2011 – 2012. Statistical samples of this investigation consists of one hundred (100) children of five (5) years of age, who live in Ilam city and have been shown a short three minute narrative cartoon, and have been asked to narrate it. Propositional content and some of the linguistic features of the children’s narrations are explored separately based on two criteria. From another standpoint, the interactive input is studied by using a structured interview which has been determined by comprehensive studies. The results of the study reveal that children exposed to adequate and satisfactory interaction with their mothers are more capable in terms of conceptual background knowledge and linguistic outputs.

Keywords

• Key words: background knowledge
• content schema
• narration
• propositional content
• linguistic features
• mother - child interaction
• interactive input