American and Chinese Children’s Knowledge of Basic Relational Concepts

Abstract

Three hundred kindergarten, first and second grade children from Beijing, China were given the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts-Revised (BTBC-R) at the end of the school year. Their performance was compared with that of American children from the standardization sample of BTBC-R. This study explores two questions: (1) Will lexical diversity and morphological complexity affect the rate of acquisition of the basic relational concepts between children who speak distinctly different languages? and (2) to what extent do conceptual factors interact with linguistic differences in children’s development of basic relational concepts? Results showed that Chinese children acquired significantly more basic relational concepts than their American peers at both first and second grades did but not at kindergarten. This difference in acquisition is discussed in terms of the characteristics of the two languages. Nonlinguistic factors are discussed in terms of cultural and parental influences on young children’s conceptual development.