Communicative Functions in Children Raised in Three Different Social Contexts in Colombia: The Key Issue of Joint Attention

Abstract

Children’s sociocultural experiences vary around the world. Colombia is a South American country where the differences between socioeconomic statuses (SES) are huge. In this study, through the ECSP-E Scale, translated to Spanish and validated for linguistic and cultural equivalence, the development of three communicative functions was evaluated through an interactive sociopragmatic approach. The participants comprised 36 24-month-old children, raised in three different social contexts in Colombia, with the goal of comparing them across groups of SES. The lowest SES group sample subjects were representative of extreme poverty and members of an ethnic group, the Wayuú. Results for the communicative functions, namely social interaction (SI), joint attention (JA), and behavior regulation (BR), showed that the only function with no significant differences across SES was joint attention. This supports the hypothesis that the development of this function may be universal, in light of the fact that the Wayuú not only differed from other subjects in terms of their socioeconomic status but also in their culture. Higher SES was related to better social interaction, while Low SES was associated with better behavior regulation than their High SES peers. Consequently, results are discussed considering socioeconomic and cultural differences in the development of communication and social interactions, leading us to reexamine the paradigms, theories, and practices that are used when observing children raised in very poor environments.