The correlation between oral language development and relational aggression among 4-to-6 year-old Persian children

 Introduction:Language development and social behavior are considered as crucial aspects of initial development in children. One of the most common behavioral problems in childhood is relational aggression that is defined as behaviors that harm others through damaging to social relationships. Relational aggression is related to the different factors such as language development, which has been examined among normal preschool children in the present study.Materials and Methods:In a descriptive cross-sectional survey, 106 children of 4 and 6 years old (42 girls and 64 boys) who satisfied the inclusion criteria were recruited from Shiraz kindergartens by multi-stage random selection method. The Test of Language Development-Primary: 3rd Edition (TOLD-3) and Relational Aggression Questionnaire for Preschool Children were used to assess children. Data was analyzed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient and independent t-test. Significance level was set at less than 0.05.Results: There was a positive and significant correlation between oral language development and relational aggression in the boys (p<0.01). Although the girls’ scores of language development and relational aggression were significantly more than the boys (p<0.01), there was no significant correlation in the girls (p>0.05).Conclusion: The better oral language skills among 4-to-6 year-old boys can be considered as a facilitative factor in expressing their relational aggressive behaviors.Keywords: normal children, oral language development, receptive language, expressive language, relational aggression