The Effects of Mothers’ Age, Educational Level, Occupation and Children’s Birth Order on Iranian Preschoolers’ Communicative Performance

The researchers aim was to find out the potential effects of some maternal factors such as age, educational level, occupation as well as children’s birth order on the communicative performance of preschoolers in Iran. This study was conducted with 31 preschoolers selected from Bahar Language Institute in Shiraz, Iran. The required data about mothers and children were gathered through a questionnaire developed by the researchers and an interview done by two raters. Following the process of data collection, independent samples t-test was employed, the results of which indicated that there was a significant difference between the pronunciation of children based on their mothers’ education level (sig.=.03, p<.05). It was also found out that there was a significant difference (sig.=.019, p<.05) between the total communicative performances of working mothers’ children (M=85.94) and that of children whose mothers were unemployed housewives (M=80.82). However, the researchers found no significant difference between communicative performance of these two groups whose mothers belonged to different age groups, i.e. below 35 and above 35. Also, the results demonstrated a significant difference (sig.=.009, p<.05) in the pronunciation of first children compared to that of second kids.