Lenguaje y Uso de Etiquetas Emocionales: Su Relación con el Desarrollo Socioemocional en Niños de 30 meses que Asisten a Jardín Infantil

Despite the growing interest in early childhood socioemotional development, few studies how the language and vocabulary that small children use to refer to emotions can help them to achieve an adequate socioemotional development. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relation between language and emotional labeling with socioemotional development in 30-month-old children. The nonprobabilistic sample comprised 84 children from various socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds attending daycares in Santiago, Chile. The language and social-emotional scales of the Bayley Scale of Infant and Toddler Development III were used along with guidelines for coding emotional labels. Student's t-test was used to conduct comparative analyses of the variables considering sex and SES. Results indicate that girls achieve better language development and that mid/high SES children reach better socioemotional and language development. In addition, the language was found to be related to emotional labeling (Pearson's r). The only study variable that predicted socioemotional development was SES.