Language development in preschool years: The role of urbanity of residential place

The aim of the present study was to investigate the language development of preschool aged children who lived in urban and rural areas. In the study there were involved 831 children (412 boys και 419 girls) aged 2.5 to 6 years who attended kindergarten and day nurseries in Thessaloniki. From the 831 children, 596 lived and attended kindergarten and day nurseries in urban areas, whereas 235 kindergarten and day nurseries in rural areas. Receptive vocabulary was examined by the British Picture Vocabulary Scales (BPVS, Dunn, Dunn, Whetton & Pintillie, 1982), whereas the language abilities were assessed using the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (MSCA, McCarthy, 1972). The resulted showed that children lived in rural areas had lower language abilities, compared to children lived in urban areas. In particular, rural children had more limited receptive vocabulary and lower scores in word knowledge, verbal fluency and word and story memory, compared to urban children. Differences in language development among rural and urban children were obvious at the age of 3 to the age of 6 years. Sex differences were not found.