The relationships among language ability,emotion regulation and social competence in second-grade students

Abstract

Relationships exist between language ability, emotion regulation, and social competence in preschool children. This study examines how these relationships function in elementary school children, and explores whether language ability partially mediates the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence. Second-grade students (N = 67) completed an assessment of receptive vocabulary, and teachers rated emotional and social skills. Results show relationships between emotion regulation and social competence, and between language and aspects of social competence. There were compelling sex differences in the strength of the relationships between these variables. However, language did not act as a mediator. Future research should further investigate the role of language skills in social competence as children mature, and further investigate sex differences in these constructs.

Keywords

emotion regulation language proficiency social adjustment

Social competence has important implications for child development. Children with good social skills are better prepared for school, have higher attendance rates, report increased enjoyment of school, and achieve at higher levels than their peers (Ladd, 1990; Ladd, Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1997). Cavell (1990) proposed a three-tiered model of social competence that includes social adjustment (reaching age-appropriate landmarks), social performance (demonstrating characteristics in social situations that adults judge as appropriate), and social skills (characteristics that enable a child to act appropriately). Cavell (1990) also identified peer acceptance as a product of social competence. Among the processes involved in the development of social skills, language ability and emotion regulation may be especially important in children’s ability to successfully interact with others. The present study investigates these concepts in second-grade children.

Language ability is essential for social competence because children must understand others and communicate effectively in order to demonstrate their social skills (Gallagher, 1993). Through interaction with peers, children learn to ask questions, to listen, and to identify with another person’s perspective. For example, children must be able to recognize when to employ appropriate prosocial behaviors, such as sympathizing with a distressed peer rather than making a joke. Language may facilitate the ability to choose appropriate behaviors by allowing children to develop emotion expression knowledge, the ability to identify emotional expressions, as well as emotion situation knowledge, the ability to match emotional labels with context (Schultz, Izard, & Ackerman, 2001). These skills allow children to develop friendships and enhance their ability to act in a socially competent manner across different contexts. Research suggests that receptive vocabulary, or the ability to comprehend language, is more important in nominations of peer status than age or intelligence, and that children prefer to interact with peers with typical or above-average receptive vocabulary skills (Gertner, Rice, & Hadley, 1994). Among language-impaired children, those with better receptive vocabulary abilities score higher on peer preference tests than children who are more severely language-impaired (Gertner et al., 1994). Receptive language ability has also been linked to higher teacher ratings of social competence (Longoria, Page, Hubbs-Tait, & Kennison, 2009) and several prosocial behaviors, such as comforting or sympathizing with others, cooperating, and helping (Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, & Zubernis, 2003).

Just as research suggests that advanced language ability is related to positive behavior, there is evidence that children with language deficits are not as socially skilled as their typically developing peers. Children who are language-delayed demonstrate poorer control of their emotions (Fujiki, Brinton, & Clarke, 2002) and have more behavioral problems than their typically developing and advanced peers (Beitchman, 1996; Camarata, Hughes, & Ruhl, 1988; Gallagher, 1999) and teachers view language-delayed children as less socially mature and less intellectual than their peers (Rice, Hadley, & Alexander, 1993). Language delays also lead to impaired social interactions because children with language deficits experience difficulty introducing and maintaining conversation topics, as well as in adjusting verbal output to a listener’s needs (Gallagher, 1999). These deficiencies in comprehension ability lead to a lack of responsiveness when others initiate play, and as a result other children spend less time attempting to engage language-delayed peers (Cohen & Mendez, 2009). This decrease in peer interaction further reduces opportunities for children to develop social skills, initiating a cycle of rejection that could lead to emotional maladjustment and juvenile delinquency (Denham & Holt, 1993).

Like social competence, emotion regulation is a multifaceted construct, defined as initiating, avoiding, inhibiting, maintaining, or adjusting any part of an internal-feeling state, physiological process related to emotion, or emotion-related goal (Eisenberg, 2004). In short, emotion regulation involves tailoring behavior to accommodate a feeling or a desire to have a feeling. This includes effortful control, which is the ability to inhibit one response in favor of another, as well as the ability to identify others’ emotions, which is one aspect of the broader concept of social cognition (Eisenberg, 2001, 2004; Spinrad et al., 2006). Emotion regulation refers to adaptive emotional behavior and is distinct from emotional lability, which pertains to the volatility and intensity of negative emotions. Internal state language, a form of self-awareness, contributes to emotion regulation (Cole, Armstrong, & Pemberton, 2010) by allowing children to discuss their experiences and tailor their behavior to the prevailing social environment. This enables them to regulate their emotions effectively.

Successful emotion regulation relies on two main coping strategies: problem-focused coping, or modifying the source of stress, and emotion-focused coping, or reducing emotional distress (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992). Children who employ these strategies and regulate their emotions well generally have more positive social interactions with their peers and are more likely to be classified as socially competent. Teacher ratings of increased social status are positively related to attentional control, constructive coping, prosocial behavior, and the ability to understand social situations (Denham, McKinley, Couchoud, & Holt, 1990; Eisenberg et al., 1993); lower social status has been linked to negative affect, emotional intensity and acting-out coping styles, as well as to withdrawal (Eisenberg et al., 1993; Fujiki, Spackman, Brinton, & Hall, 2004). This means that children who utilized effective coping strategies and understood that their actions had implications for the prevailing social context were more socially competent than their peers.

There is strong support for the nexus between language ability and social competence, and between emotion regulation and social competence, but previous research has not investigated the possibility that language ability partially mediates the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence. Children’s vocabulary affords them the ability to discuss their own experiences while understanding others’ experiences and feelings. This leads to meaningful interactions that develop into friendships. In addition, children with the ability to adjust their internal state can cope with stress effectively through the use of internal state language (Cole et al., 2010). Testing the hypothesis that language ability acts as a mechanism through which emotion regulation and social competence are related could have implications for prevention of and intervention in behavioral issues in early elementary school. If language ability mediates this relationship, intervention programs may wish to focus on improving children’s language skills.

Much of the research regarding verbal ability and emotional and social skills is limited to preschool children (Cassidy et al., 2003; Cohen & Mendez, 2009; Denham et al., 1990; Eisenberg et al., 1993) and uses ratings of peer play trajectories as a measure of social competence (Cohen & Mendez, 2009; Mendez, Fantuzzo, & Cicchetti, 2002). Other work in this area has investigated language-impaired samples in elementary school and followed up in adolescence or adulthood (Johnson, Beitchman, & Brownlie, 2010; Young et al., 2002). The present study further contributes to the literature on social skills by utilizing teacher reports on the global functioning of typically-developing children, and by focusing exclusively on 7- and 8-year-old children. As children enter elementary school, the relationships between affect, behavior, and language grow more complex, and the cognition involved in understanding others as well as expressing oneself becomes more important than in preschool (White, 1965). Between the ages of 5 and 7, children’s cognitive functioning matures and they are able to perceive interactions through different perspectives (Greenberg, Kusche, Cook, & Quamma, 1995). These maturational factors may result in changes in the mechanisms by which social competence develops. Given the developmental changes that occur between preschool and elementary school, it is reasonable to investigate the relationships between language and emotional and social skills in an elementary school sample.

Based on previous literature that linked language ability with peer status and teacher ratings of social competence, and research that tied emotion regulation with social skills, the present study hypothesized that both language ability and emotion regulation skills would predict social competence. This study also hypothesized that language ability would partially mediate the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence, as seen in Figure 1. The relationship between emotion regulation and social competence should weaken when language ability is taken into account, suggesting that language is one mechanism through which emotion regulation is achieved. This study also considered these relationships separately for boys and girls to examine sex-based differences. No predictions were made regarding the direction or strength of the relationships by sex.

Figure 1.

Mediation model.

Method

Participants

Participants were second-grade students (N = 67) at a public elementary school in a university town in rural Pennsylvania, USA; two students were excluded due to incomplete data. Most were European-American (78.8%), with the remainder of the sample multiracial (7.5%), African-American (1.5%), Asian/Pacific-Islander (1.5%), or other (7.6%). Three percent had missing data on race/ethnicity. There were 35 girls (53.8%) and 30 boys (46.2%) in the sample. The mean age of the children was 7 years and 6 months (SD = .51 months, range = 6 years, 11 months–8 years, 11 months). Data on students’ family income was not collected. However, 39% of the school’s students were designated as “low-income” by the state. The state of Pennsylvania considers sources such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cases, receipt of Medicaid, children’s residence in institutions for the neglected, and eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch in determining this status.

Materials and procedure

Language ability

The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Fourth Edition (PPVT-IV; Dunn & Dunn, 2007) was used to measure receptive vocabulary. Internal consistency is strong, with split-half reliability ranging from .95 to .97, and Cronbach’s alpha co-efficients ranging from .95 to .98 (Dunn & Dunn, 2007).

Emotion regulation

The Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997) is a teacher-rated instrument designed to assess children’s emotion regulation in the classroom. It contains 24 items that are rated on a four-point Likert scale: (1 = rarely/never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = often, 4 = almost always). Shields and Cicchetti (1997) identified two scales: lability/negativity, which measures emotion dysregulation, and emotion regulation, which assesses adaptive behavior. Analysis from the present study confirmed that the instrument exhibited good internal reliability. Cronbach’s alpha equaled .87 for the lability/negativity subscale and .89 for the regulation subscale.

Social competence

The Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) of The Behavioral Assessment System for Children—2 (BASC-2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004) was used to measure social competence. The TRS contains four composite scales: externalizing problems; internalizing problems; school problems; and adaptive skills. Each was used to measure both adaptive and maladaptive aspects of social competence. Internal consistency is high, with co-efficient alphas in the low to mid .90s for the school problems, internalizing, and externalizing composites, and in the high .90s for the adaptive skills composite (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004).

Procedure

All second-grade students in the school were eligible to participate. Students were recruited for the study through consent forms which they took home to a parent or guardian. To increase incentive for students to return the consent forms, a pizza party was provided for the class with the highest rate of returns regardless of parental decision. Out of the total 104 second-grade students, 89 (85.6%) returned the forms, and response rates per class ranged from 20 out of 21 (95.2%) to 16 out of 20 (80%). Of the students who returned the forms, 67 (75.2%) received permission from a parent or guardian to participate, resulting in an overall response rate of 64.4%.

The PPVT was administered to students by the first author in an empty classroom during the school day. Each student’s primary teacher completed the ERC and BASC, and received $10.00 per child rated.

Results

The means and standard deviations for each variable for the total sample and by sex can be seen in Table 1. To evaluate the first hypothesis that emotion regulation and language ability would predict social competence, regression analyses were conducted, as seen in Table 2. Bivariate correlations between the variables are provided in Table 3.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics

Variables	Mean (SD)	Boys	Girls
PPVT	111.2 (13.2)	114.0 (10.9)	108.4 (14.6)
ERC emotion regulation	26.2 (3.9)	24.8 (4.0)	27.2 (3.5)
ERC lability/negativity	23.5 (6.1)	24.8 (6.5)	22.6 (5.7)
BASC internalizing	51.6 (14.5)	51.7 (17.6)	51.4 (11.4)
BASC externalizing	48.2 (8.4)	50.1 (8.5)	46.6 (8.1)
BASC school problems	47.3 (8.8)	48.4 (8.3)	46.4 (9.2)
BASC adaptive skills	50.8 (8.5)	48.7 (8.0)	52.5 (8.6)

Note. N = 65 (35 girls, 30 boys). PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) standard scores; ERC emotion regulation = emotion regulation subscale scores on the ERC; ERC lability/negativity = lability/negativity subscale scores on the ERC; BASC internalizing = scores on the internalizing problems composite of the BASC; BASC externalizing = scores on the externalizing problems composite of the BASC; BASC school problems = scores on the school problems subscale of the BASC; BASC adaptive skills = scores on the adaptive skills composite of the BASC.

Table 2.

Prediction of social competence by emotion regulation subscales and PPVT scores

ERC emotion regulation					ERC lability/negativity				PPVT
BASC	b (s.e.)	β	t	p	b (s.e.)	β	T	p	b (s.e.)	β	t	p
Externalizing	−1.1 (.23)	−.53	−4.9	.00	1.2 (.08)	.88	14.6	.00	−.10 (.08)	−.16	−1.3	.21
Internalizing	−1.2 (.45)	−.32	−2.6	.01	.96 (.27)	.41	3.6	.00	−.14 (.14)	−.14	−1.0	.31
School prob.	−1.2 (.25)	−.51	−4.7	.00	.86 (.14)	.60	5.9	.00	−.28 (.08)	−.42	−3.7	.00
Adaptive	1.5 (.20)	.70	7.9	.00	−.90 (.13)	−.65	−6.9	.00	.23 (.08)	.36	3.0	.00

Note. N = 65. PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) standard scores; ERC emotion regulation = emotion regulation subscale scores on the ERC; ERC lability/negativity = lability/negativity subscale scores on the ERC; Externalizing = scores on the externalizing problems composite of the BASC; Internalizing = scores on the internalizing problems composite of the BASC; School problems = scores on the school problems subscale of the BASC; Adaptive skills = scores on the adaptive skills composite of the BASC.

Table 3.

Bivariate correlations

Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
PPVT	—	.06	−.06	−.13	−.16	−.43^**	−.36^**
ERC emotion regulation		—	−.60^**	−.32^*	−.53^**	−.51^**	.70^**
ERC lability/negativity			—	.41^**	.88^**	−.52^**	−.65^**
BASC internalizing				—	.36^**	.21	−.31^*
BASC externalizing					—	.70^**	−.66^**
BASC school problems						—	−.80^**
BASC adaptive skills							—

Note. N = 65. PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) standard scores; ERC emotion regulation = emotion regulation subscale scores on the ERC; ERC lability/negativity = lability/negativity subscale scores on the ERC; BASC internalizing = scores on the internalizing problems composite of the BASC; BASC externalizing = scores on the externalizing problems composite of the BASC; BASC school problems = scores on the school problems subscale of the BASC; BASC adaptive skills = scores on the adaptive skills composite of the BASC. ^*p < .05; ^**p < .01.

Emotion regulation and language ability as predictors of social competence

To investigate whether emotion regulation predicted social competence, social competence was regressed on the regulation subscale of the ERC. As hypothesized, increased ability to regulate emotions predicted higher social competence ratings. Scores on the emotion regulation subscale negatively predicted scores on the externalizing problems composite of the BASC, F(1, 64) = 24. 17, p < .001, β = −.53, R = .53, adjusted R ²= .27; the internalizing composite, F(1, 64) = 6.89, p = .01, β = −.31, R = .31, adjusted R ²= .08; and the school problems composite, F(1, 64) = 22.28, p < .001, β = −.51, R = .51, adjusted R ²= .25. Scores on the emotion regulation subscale positively predicted scores on the adaptive skills composite, F(1, 63) = 61.76, p < .001, β = .70, R = .70, adjusted R ²= .49. The hypothesis that emotion dysregulation would predict lower social competence was also supported: scores on the lability/negativity subscale of the ERC positively predicted scores on the externalizing composite, F(1, 64) = 213.87, p < .001, β = .88, R = .88, adjusted R ²= .77; the internalizing composite, F(1, 64) = 12.7, p = .001, β = .41, R = .41, adjusted R ²= .16; and the school problems composite, F(1, 64) = 35.17, p < .001, β = .60, R = .60, adjusted R ²= .35. Scores on the lability/negativity subscale negatively predicted scores on the adaptive skills composite, F(1, 64) = 46.90, p < .001, β = −.65, R = .65, adjusted R ²= .42.

The hypothesis that increased language ability would predict higher social competence was partially supported. Scores on the PPVT negatively predicted school problems, F(1, 64) = 13.80, p < .001, β = −.42, R = .42, adjusted R ²= .17, and positively predicted adaptive skills, F(1, 64) = 9.11, p = .004, β = .36, R = .36, adjusted R ²= .11. However, language ability did not predict scores on the externalizing composite, F(1, 64) = 1.62, p =.21, β = −.16, R = .16, adjusted R ²= .01, or scores on the internalizing composite, F(1, 64) = 1.04, p = .31, β = −.13, R = .13, adjusted R ²= .00.

Language ability as a mediator

The hypothesis that language ability would partially mediate the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence was tested using the procedures described by Baron and Kenny (1986). Step one of the mediation analysis involved regressing language ability on emotion regulation. Scores on the regulation subscale of the ERC did not significantly predict scores on the PPVT, F(1, 64) = .21, p = .65, β = .06, R = .06, adjusted R ²= −.01. Similarly, scores on the lability/negativity subscale did not significantly predict PPVT scores, F(1, 64) = .20, p = .66, β = −.06, R = .00, adjusted R ²= −.01. Because the measures of emotion regulation did not predict language ability, the hypothesis that language ability partially mediates the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence was not supported.

Sex differences

Results of the regressions by sex can be seen in Table 4. In general, most relationships were stronger for girls. These included the predictions of the internalizing, externalizing, and adaptive skills composites of the BASC from both subscales of the ERC. Further, three relationships were significant only among girls: the prediction of internalizing problems from both subscales of the ERC, and the prediction of externalizing problems from language ability.

Table 4.

Regression results by sex

Relationship	R ² total sample	R ²boys	R ²girls
ERC emotion regula\tion ↠ externalizing	.28^**	.16^*	.36^**
ERC emotion regulation ↠ internalizing	.10^*	.05	.24^**
ERC emotion regulation ↠ school problems	.26^**	.15^*	.32^**
ERC emotion regulation ↠ adaptive skills	.50^**	.41^**	.54^**
ERC emotion regulation ↠ PPVT	.06	.03	.01
ERC lability/negativity ↠ externalizing	.77^**	.72^**	.80^**
ERC lability/negativity ↠ internalizing	.17^**	.05	.51^**
ERC lability/negativity ↠ school problems	.36^**	.39^**	.33^**
ERC lability/negativity ↠ adaptive skills	.43^**	.38^**	.45^**
ERC lability/negativity ↠ PPVT	.00	.00	.03
PPVT ↠ externalizing	.03	.00	.11^*
PPVT ↠ internalizing	.02	.05	.00
PPVT ↠ school problems	.18^**	.26^**	.19^**
PPVT ↠ adaptive skills	.13^**	.10^*	.19^**

Note. N = 65 (35 girls, 30 boys). ERC emotion regulation = emotion regulation subscale of the ERC; ERC lability/negativity = lability/negativity subscale of the ERC; externalizing = externalizing composite of the BASC; internalizing = internalizing composite of the BASC; school problems = school problems composite of the BASC; adaptive skills = adaptive skills composite of the BASC; PPVT = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-IV) standard scores. The arrows indicate the direction of the relationship. ^*p < .05; ^**p < .01.

Discussion

The first hypothesis that emotion regulation and language ability would predict social competence was partially supported. Strong relationships were found between emotion regulation and all measures of social skills, and language ability was strongly related to school problems and adaptive skills. This supports previous research that linked emotion regulation to social competence (Cohen & Mendez, 2009; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1992; Spinrad et al., 2006) and emotional problems to deficits in social skills (Cohen & Mendez, 2009; Cole & Hall, 2008). The result regarding language ability’s relationship with social skills aligns with prior research in some respects but differs in other ways. Although our hypothesis that language ability would partially mediate the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence was not supported, regression analyses revealed several sex differences that warrant further investigation.

Our finding that emotion regulation predicted social skills extends theory from previous research to a slightly older population. Based on prior work that implicated coping strategies and comprehension of social cues in teacher-rated social status (Denham et al., 1990; Eisenberg et al., 1993) it appears that effectively appraising social context and acting accordingly are key influences on teacher ratings of social competence at any young age. In addition, the finding that emotional lability predicted internalizing and externalizing problems supports prior research that found that emotion dysregulation distinguished preschool children’s play patterns (Cohen & Mendez, 2009). The present study extends this work by utilizing a different measure of social skills for an older age group.

Two relationships within the emotion regulation/social competence paradigm appear to be due in part to the similarity of those constructs. The first was the relationship between scores on the emotion regulation subscale of the ERC and the adaptive skills composite of the BASC. The ERC includes items such as “responds positively to neutral or friendly overtures from adults” and “is empathic toward others,” which indicate good social and communication skills. Both of those constructs are subscales on the BASC’s adaptability composite. The second relationship, between emotional lability and externalizing problems, appears due to similarities between the lability/negativity subscale and the hyperactivity aspect of the BASC’s externalizing composite. For instance, the ERC includes items such as “is impulsive” and “is overly exuberant when engaging others in play;” these are similar to the BASC items “acts without thinking” and “is overly active.”

The present study found strong relationships between receptive language ability and school problems, as well as adaptive skills. These associations are not surprising. The measure of school problems used in the current study assesses attention and learning problems, and because children learn at least some vocabulary in school, it seems logical that their performance might suffer if they experienced trouble focusing in class. More broadly, it is likely that language ability contributes to children’s understanding of academic assignments across the curriculum, increasing their ability to successfully participate in a classroom environment.

Regarding the relationship between language ability and adaptive skills, it appears that language might be especially important for aspects of adaptive skills measured in the current study. The first, functional communication, assesses both expressive and receptive communication abilities, and includes items such as “responds appropriately when asked a question.” The ability to correctly respond to a question requires adequate comprehension. The second, study skills, appears to be inherently related to language ability. Items included in the measure of study skills include “reads” and “completes homework.” Presumably, knowledge of vocabulary is directly related to the ability to engage in these tasks. Previous research has found a relationship between language ability and adaptive skills (Gertner et al., 1994; Longoria et al., 2009), and the current study provides a new perspective regarding social competence as a whole.

The first hypothesis that emotion regulation and language ability would predict social competence was only partially supported because language ability did not predict socio-emotional problems in this sample. There could be two reasons for this. First, prior research typically measured social competence through popularity or social status, and children who ranked low in those categories may not have had serious behavioral issues. Second, the relationship between language delay and behavioral problems may be exclusive to older children and children with clinical issues. Second-grade students may be too young to demonstrate noticeable internalizing problems, and although language delay has been linked to externalizing issues, much of that work pertains to children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; Beitchman, 1985; Cohen, Davine, & Meloche-Kelly, 1988). The relationship may have been diminished in the current sample of typically developing children.

Our findings regarding sex differences in the strength of the predictions of social competence are quite interesting and warrant continued research. Three relationships were significant only for girls: (1) lability/negativity and internalizing; (2) emotion regulation and internalizing; and (3) language ability and externalizing. Moreover, the relationships between almost all of the variables were stronger in girls than in boys. These results contradict Eisenberg et al.’s (1993) finding that attentional control, or the ability to effectively allocate attention, predicted social competence only in boys. That study also found a correlation between constructive coping and social skills only in boys. Although Eisenberg and colleagues (1993) addressed these constructs in preschool children, the SES and racial makeup of their sample was similar to the present study’s. Other than Eisenberg et al.’s (1993) study, previous literature does not appear to have addressed sex differences in the processes involved in the development of social competence.

Prior studies have also had mixed results on sex differences in the display of social competence. Kaiser, Xinsheng, Hancock, and Foster (2002) found that boys in Head Start demonstrated more externalizing and internalizing behavioral issues than girls. However, Eisenberg et al. (2001) reported that there were no sex differences in teacher and mother reports of these behaviors in 6-year-old children, although fathers rated girls as having more internalizing problems and boys as having more externalizing problems. Future research may wish to investigate sex differences in social competence in preschool and elementary school, and evaluate if emotion regulation and language ability operates in a similar fashion among boys and girls.

Regarding the present finding that scores on the emotion regulation subscale and the lability/negativity subscale predicted internalizing problems only in girls, it is possible that girls with below-average emotion regulation skills are at greater risk for internalizing issues than boys. Carter et al. (2010) found that girls demonstrated higher levels of general anxiety than boys throughout toddlerhood, and suggested that future research explores whether girls are actually at more risk for internalizing issues as they enter childhood. It is possible that emotion regulation contributes more to girls’ internalizing problems than boys.

The third significant sex difference was language ability’s prediction of externalizing issues only in girls. This supports Kaiser et al.’s (2002) finding that girls with language deficits were significantly more likely to demonstrate lower social competence than boys with language deficits. However, Kaiser et al. (2002) also reported that girls with language deficits were no more likely than boys to show externalizing as opposed to internalizing behavior. The current study’s findings suggest that receptive vocabulary may be more important in the development of girls’ externalizing patterns than in boys. Perhaps a girl with externalizing issues is too hyperactive, for example, to practice listening in social situations and enhance receptive vocabulary. If receptive vocabulary is more important for girls’ social interactions than boys, this deficit may disproportionately affect girls. The present finding reinforces the need for future research to investigate the overlap between language ability and social competence, and how it may differ by sex and age.

Present findings failed to support the partial mediation model, as emotion regulation did not predict language skills. This contradicts previous research that found that PPVT scores significantly correlated with both subscales of the ERC (Cohen & Mendez, 2009). Past work has also demonstrated that receptive vocabulary is related to emotion expression and emotion situation knowledge (Schultz et al., 2001), meaning that children with greater verbal capacities had a better understanding of emotions than their peers. This enabled them to discuss their feelings, interpret others’ emotional states, and solve interpersonal problems (Dunn, Brown, & Simons & Beardsall, 1991; Greenberg et al., 1995). Considering this research on the role of language and discourse in emotion regulation and development, the lack of a relationship in the present study is surprising.

One possibility that may account for the non-significant relationship between language ability and emotion regulation is the distinction in types of language. Expressive vocabulary refers to one’s ability to articulate meaningful words and phrases; receptive vocabulary is rooted in the ability to understand others. Although receptive and expressive vocabulary are highly correlated (Sideridis & Simons 2010), expressive ability may be more important for emotion regulation. Expressive ability may also be more critical for using constructive coping and the strategies for dealing with stress discussed by Eisenberg et al. (1993) and Eisenberg and Fabes (1992). In using Cole et al.’s (2010) internal state language to think about their own experiences and frame them according to social context, articulating emotions with expressive language could be more important than understanding them with receptive language.

A lack of participants with poorer language ability and emotion regulation skills also could have contributed to the non-significant relationship between language ability and emotion regulation. Specifically, there was a noticeable lack of variance in score distribution on the language and emotion regulation measures. Scores on the PPVT were very negatively skewed at −.68. With an average standard score of 100 for each age group, this sample’s mean of 111 is nearly one full standard deviation away from the standardized mean. Only 13 children, or about 20% of the sample, scored lower than the standardized average. Scores on the emotion regulation subscale of the ERC were also negatively skewed at −.38, and scores on the lability/negativity subscale were positively skewed at .84. These results suggest that children possessed above-average receptive language ability, regulated their emotions well in general, and did not show many negative emotions. It is possible that, in highly competent samples, the relationships between language and emotion regulation as well as socio-emotional problems diminish.

Another explanation is that the relationship between language ability and emotion regulation is not linear. Prior research has focused on preschool children, and it is conceivable that language’s role in emotion regulation and social competence diminishes by the time children reach second grade. Perhaps children must reach a minimum level of language ability to regulate effectively, and the differences in ability between children who have surpassed that minimum are unremarkable. However, children who have failed to reach the baseline level would still experience difficulty in regulating emotions and would be at risk for behavioral problems or antisocial behavior.

There were a few limitations of this study worth noting. First, we relied on a measure of receptive vocabulary to reflect language ability. This limited the results to not just the receptive vocabulary domain, but to vocabulary in general. In attempting to measure the construct of language in elementary school children, a more comprehensive assessment of language ability may be more appropriate. If the importance of vocabulary knowledge or expression diminishes with age, studies might find that the processes involved in expression or comprehension might be more associated with social competence as children grow older. Children who perform well on vocabulary measures may still have deficits in syntactical and morphological areas, which can be more subtle (Nation, Clarke, Marshall, & Durand, 2004). Research in these more specific language areas has addressed reading comprehension, cognitive functions, and lexical learning (Nation et al., 2004; van der Lely, 2005), but has not examined their relationship to emotion regulation or social competence. This unexplored domain reinforces the importance of assessing multiple areas of language, especially in older children.

A second limitation pertains to relying on teacher ratings for the assessment of emotion regulation and social competence. Future studies should consider a more comprehensive approach in this area, as integrating information from different informants is ideal for gaining a complete picture of a child’s functioning (Achenbach, McConaughy, & Howell, 1987).

Other limitations pertain to the sample: European-Americans represented an overwhelming majority of participants, and as a result this study differs from prior research that focused on Head Start programs, which are more racially diverse. Future research should align sample characteristics and demographics with those of prior studies. Finally, relatively few children performed poorly on each measure. This means that, in general, children in this study had good verbal skills, regulated their emotions well, and displayed adequate social skills. The current study sample’s high competence means that the results may only apply to high-performing children.

Several findings suggest the need for further investigation. Although only three of the regressions were significantly different by sex, research should evaluate the finding that these relationships were generally stronger in girls. Research has not attempted to delineate whether there are different predictors of social competence for boys and girls, and future studies should look to clarify this area. Studies might explore the developmental differences between the sexes and isolate unique experiences for each. Differences in socialization processes and expectations regarding boys’ and girls’ behavior and social interactions may have implications for who might demonstrate socio-emotional problems.

In research concerning externalizing and internalizing issues, investigators should further evaluate the role of language and establish a threshold at which children could be at risk for problems. Research has shown that language delay is related to externalizing issues in clinical samples, but it is possible that this relationship diminishes in typically developing children. Future studies should also strive to obtain a sample that represents the entire spectrum of language and social skills, and investigate the relationships for high-performing and low-performing children. Doing so would enable investigators to take a more comprehensive perspective on how these relationships work. A large, longitudinal design might ensure that children of all abilities are captured, and would allow breakdown of the relationships by ability, age, and sex. Previous research has not investigated how the role of language in emotion regulation and social skills development differs between early and middle childhood, and in adolescence.

The present study sought to determine the mechanisms by which children develop good social skills. If the importance of receptive vocabulary diminishes as children grow older, prevention strategies that emphasize emotional development and appropriate social behavior may be advantageous. Questions remain regarding the role of expressive vocabulary, the function of language itself, and how the relationships between emotion, language, and social skills change with age and differ by sex. The present study offers strong support for the positive relationship between emotion regulation and social skills, and for language’s role in adaptive behavior.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Suman Ambwani and Dr. Greg Smith for their feedback regarding the study and in reviewing the manuscript.

Funding

This research was supported by the Psi Chi Undergraduate Grant, Spring 2011.

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