William Atkins
Thursday, 05 March 2009 20:27
Science -
Biology
Page 2 of 3
The Plester team conjectured that children, who have a strong grasp of the English language, who use text messages on a regular basis are not hurt in their literacy, but actually may be improved by it.
Plester said,
"People have been alarmed about it [texting] because there have been anecdotes about pupils putting text abbreviations in their GCSE exams, for example. The conclusion has been that this technology is ruining their language, but nobody has any data.” [BBC News]
She added,
"So far, our research has suggested that there is no evidence to link text messaging among children to a poorer ability in standard English. Those children who were the best at using "textisms" were also found to be the better spellers and writers." [BBC News]
The conclusions of this research was published in the
British Journal of Developmental Psychology (DOI: 10.1348/0261510).
The research results were also presented at the annual conference of the Developmental Section of the British Psychological Society.
Plester concludes,
“Phonological awareness has long been associated with good reading skills.” [New Scientist (February 21-27, 2009, page 17): “Txtng cn b gd 4 ur kds”]
Page three concludes with a statement on texting with regards to children who do not have good skills in English.
