Improving Verbal-Social Communication Skills of Preschool Students

The purpose of the research was to study the verbal-social skills of preschoolers from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. The goals were to determine whether teaching strategies of conflict negotiation and initiation and maintenance of conversations through group and free-play activities would lead to increased verbal-social skills among low SES preschool children. A total of 30 participants from two Head Start classrooms participated in the study. One classroom served as the experimental group, and the other classroom as the control group. Social skill strategies were taught to the experimental group, composed of 4-year olds of low SES, over a 2-month period. The researcher incorporated group and free-play activities targeting specific verbal-social skills into the intervention classroom’s activities. The control classroom received no intervention. Both groups participated in pre- and post-testing. The research demonstrated that children from low SES backgrounds, particularly those in child care settings, may possess appropriate verbal-social skills. The researcher’s observations of children from low SES backgrounds in the intervention group during play suggested that they utilized the strategies during the intervention period. The intervention proved to be a companion to the already established design of the Head Start program. If a larger sample had been used, it is likely that the group differences in social skill would have achieved statistical significance.