Early adolescent language: A content analysis of child development and educational psychology textbooks

Research suggests that teachers' knowledge of language impacts their expectations of and interactions with early adolescents. Teacher candidates are first introduced to early adolescent development, including language development, through courses in child development and or educational psychology. Leading child development and educational psychology textbooks were examined for all components of language, the quality and quantity of information, and the theoretical perspectives of the authors, as they were relevant to early adolescents (ages 10–14). None of the 13 textbooks examined completely described early adolescent language, neither development nor acquisition. In general, child development textbooks contained more information about language and were more complete than educational psychology textbooks. The strongest textbooks emphasized acquisition of language and were written from a social-environmental perspective.