Language Development and Intelligence in Preschoolers

Language Development and Intelligence in Preschoolers A.Razavi, Ph.D. S. Haghighat, Ph.D. T. Vaa’ezi Although almost all theoretical perspectives on language development maintain that a relationship of sorts exists between language and general concept of intelligence, the present research looked at this relationship among a random sample of Neyshaaboori preschoolers (41 female and 39 male) aged 5- 6.5 years. The general, verbal, and non-verbal intelligence was measured using the Wechsler while the language development was assessed by the use of TOLD-P3. The analysis of the collected data confirmed the well-established relationship between language development and both verbal and non-verbal intelligence, and obviously with their sum, the overall intelligence. However, significant differences were detected between boys and girls in verbal intelligence with boys outsmarting girls. Key words: language development, verbal intelligence, non-verbal intelligence, IQ, preschoolers