Afrikaans first language wh-question acquisition in low socio-economic status Grade 1 learners

Abstract

Young typically developing children find wh-questions challenging, while researchers typically expect children from low socio-economic status (SES) contexts to struggle more with language tasks, even when wh-questions test fundamental grammatical skills, especially in children aged four and older. This study thus aims to ascertain how well low SES typically developing Afrikaans first language (L1) Grade 1 learners perform on the comprehension and production of single and complex wh-questions. An Afrikaans L1 group (n = 24) was tested twice (aged 6;0 to 7;6 and 6;9 to 8;3) with question-elicitation tasks. The production of single wh-questions is developing later (with 62% mastery), while only the comprehension of conjoined adjunct questions was mastered by the end of Grade 1 (with 98% mastery). All other complex questions remain problematic by the end of Grade 1 (with mastery below 90%). Despite statistically significant improvement (p < 0.05) for most complex wh-questions over the course of the year, the low SES learners fall behind with almost all wh-questions types in Afrikaans in comparison to higher SES learners. These results provide vital information for educators as language development data can be used to inform and direct learning and teaching in classroom situations in different SES contexts.