A recent study conducted by psychologist Sarah Kucker from SMU, in collaboration with Liesl Melnick from Oklahoma State University and a team of researchers, sheds light on how shyness can affect a child’s performance in language assessments. The study emphasizes that the level of social interaction required to complete the test plays a crucial role in determining the impact of shyness.

Shy children typically display reserved behavior and face challenges in communicating with others. This behavior poses a difficulty in accurately assessing a child’s language abilities. Compared to less shy children, shy children find it harder to verbally engage with clinicians and teachers during language assessments that demand higher levels of social interaction.

To explore the relationship between shyness and language assessment performance, the researchers conducted a study involving 122 children aged between 17 and 42 months. Each child participated in three language tasks of varying social interaction levels: a looking task, a pointing task, and a production task that required verbal responses. The children were instructed to identify a known object from a set of pictures. The order of the tasks was randomized to ensure unbiased results, and the data was collected through Zoom. The parents also reported their child’s shyness levels using an early childhood behavior questionnaire.

Analysis of the results revealed significant differences in children’s performance across the tasks based on their levels of shyness. Shyer children displayed lower performance in the production task compared to their less-shy counterparts. However, all children performed well on the pointing task, regardless of their shyness level. The looking task showed more nuanced results, indicating that shy children were occasionally more accurate but less likely to respond.

Based on these findings, Kucker, an assistant professor of psychology at SMU, emphasizes the importance of considering a child’s temperament, particularly their shyness level, when evaluating their language abilities. She suggests that clinicians and teachers should take into account a child’s shyness level and use less socially demanding tasks, such as pointing tasks, to ensure more accurate assessments.

In addition to its implications for language assessment practices, this study highlights the need to acknowledge the impact of shyness on a child’s linguistic development. By understanding the role of shyness, professionals can enhance the effectiveness of language assessments and gain a more comprehensive understanding of a child’s language skills. Moving forward, Kucker and her team plan to further investigate the performance of shy and less-shy children on standardized language assessments.

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