Ensino da linguagem oral em contexto familiar: análise de uma ferramenta de observação

Abstract

Parents have an important role in their children's language acquisition. A tool which analyzes how parents are teaching language to their children is interesting as a base to the planning of an effective intervention. The present study aimed to analyze the use of a tool called Evaluation Scale of Oral Language in Family Context (Escala de Avaliação da Linguagem Oral em contexto Familiar - EVALOF) as observation tool of daily family interactions, considering (a) children's ages, (b) the kind of activity performed, (c) children's and adult's genders and (d) the number of children and adults present in the evaluated interaction. 45 families with children from zero to ten years old participated in the experiment, filming everyday activities that they perform with their children, as naturally as possible. The interactions were analyzed using EVALOF. It was verified that the score was higher in interactions in which five-year-old children participated, compared to other ages, especially children under one-year-old. The best scoring activity was storytelling, while the lowest scores were in free play. The number of children did not influence the scale score. It was observed that when the number of adults increases, the score decreases. When the interaction was composed by both genders, the score was lower compared to only female and male. Some items did not apply to certain ages and family constitutions and all items were suited to observe the analyzed activities. The use of EVALOF made possible the evaluation of oral language in family context and the tool proved itself useful in the comparison among the different analysis groups (activities, ages, number and gender of adults). The study discusses the usefulness of EVALOF to observe interactions which include very young children or dyads. Further studies may use EVALOF as effectiveness measurement of language naturalistic interventions for parents, and also use it as a base to advise families to develop their children's oral language.