The relation between perspective taking skills and language ability in preschoolers

This research was conducted in order to examine the relationship between preschool children's perspective taking skills and receptive and expressive language ability. Sample consisted 98 children from the age group of three to four and five who were attending six kindergartens attached to the Ministry of National Education in the city of Adana in the second term of the academic year 2016-2017. The study was quantified and performed as correlational research from relational research types. "General Information Form" prepared by the researcher, Perspective Taking Test for Children (PTC)" was developed by Aslan and Köksal Akyol (2016), Peabody Picture-Word Test which was created by Dunn (1959) and adapted to Turkish by Katz, Önen, Demir, Uzlukaya and Uludağ (1974) and the " Sample of Language Form" developed by the researcher. Data obtained between April-May and June 2017 by individual interviews with children. The data obtained from the instruments were analyzed primarily by descriptive statistics and normality test. As all the data is ranged normally, Pearson Correlation Analysis was done in order to determine the relation between perspective taking ability and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the ability of perspective taking and the language data collected from children that consists of the total number of sentences, the total number of words, the number of word variety and the points of average number of the words in a sentence, and regression analysis was used to determine how well receptive and expressive language ability predicted children' s perspective taking s kills. As a result of the research, it was determined that there was a significant positive correlation between children's perspective taking and receptive and expressive language ability scores. Moreover, it has been determined that this relationship begins as early as three years of age. Finally, it has also been determined that language ability significantly predicts children's ability to take perspective. Key words: Preschool period, perspective taking, language ability