16
The other factor is socioeconomics status. Hurlock explained that:
Children from the higher socioeconomic groups learn to talk earlier, they express themselves better, and they talk more than
those from the lower socioeconomics groups. This is mainly because those from the higher groups are given more
encouragement to talk and more guidance in learning how to do so.
18
As like the ordinal position factor above, the information about socioeconomics status cannot be reached from the data of communicative
competence measure test of Kumon Vila Nusa Indah students. So, it can be assumed that
this factor didn‘t correlated to children communicative competence in Kumon Vila Nusa Indah.
B. The Egocentricity of Children
Most of the young child‘s speech is egocentric. Hurlock has explained that in egocentric speech, the children make no attempt to exchange ideas or to pay
atte ntion to the other person‘s point of view. In other word, the egocentric speech
is monologue and there is no real communication present.
19
Firstly, the egocentric theory was introduced by Piaget. According to him, the egocentricity is the characteristic of the children at 2 until 7
–year-old. After 7
18
Ibid. p. 171
19
Ibid. p. 176
17 year-old, the egocentricity will decrease. This egocentric theory refers to two
factors: a.
The children are not able to differentiate their view point with their environment and the people around them. For example, if a child sees
that there is candy in a box, he assumes that someone else walking into the room also knows that there is candy in that box. He implicitly
reasons that since I know it, you should too
20
b. The children inclination to consider that the world is revolving around
them. For example, a child said that the moon is walking to follow him.
It caused children aren‘t able to understand the point of view of other people. The children are unaware that the people point of view is influenced by
the position of that people to things. The child assumed that what he sees is same with the other sees.
To investigate the children egocentrism, Piaget did a test that was called the three mountains problem. He put children in front of a simple plaster mountain
range and then asked them to pick from four pictures the view that he, Piaget, would see. Younger children before age 7 picked the picture of the view they
themselves saw and were therefore found to lack the ability to appreciate a viewpoint different from their own. In other words, their way of reasoning was
20
Piaget J Inhelder B 19481956 The Childs Conception of Space. London: Routledge and Paul Kegan. Accessed on April 19, 2009.
http:en . wikipedia.orgwikiegocentrism.
18 egocentric. Only when entering stage at age 7-12, children became capable of
decentring and could appreciate viewpoints other than their own.
21
In this case, it‘s clearly enough that a child‘s ability to describe something is not only
influenced by his ability to understand the view point of other people but also is influenced by his knowledge about that thing.
C. Communicative Competence
