This study explored whether parental directions about location differ by socioeconomic status ( SES ) and whether children’s performance is associated with parental spatial directions. We designed a task in which parents hid a toy in one of five identical boxes in a small-scale space, and then verbally guided their children’s search. Middle- SES ( MSES ) parents employed more language in general than low- SES ( LSES ) parents. However, groups used the same amount of spatial terms, suggesting that providing effective spatial directions is probably a matter of quality than quantity. Parents differed in the use of frames of reference; with LSES parents scarcely using them, which resulted in ambiguous reference. MSES parents showed a higher rate of person frames of reference and proximity terms, and their children performed better in the task. Our results suggest that spatial communication including person frames of reference combined with proximity information might be an effective strategy to communicate location.

中文翻译：

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家长交流有关地理位置的社会经济差异

这项研究探讨了父母关于位置的指示是否因社会经济地位（SES）而有所不同，以及儿童的表现是否与父母的空间指示有关。我们设计了一项任务，其中父母将玩具藏在一个小范围内的五个相同盒子中的一个盒子中，然后口头引导孩子进行搜索。与低SES（LSES）父母相比，中SES（MSES）父母通常使用更多的语言。但是，小组使用了相同数量的空间术语，这表明提供有效的空间方向可能是质量而非数量的问题。父母在参照系的使用上有所不同。与LSES的父母很少使用它们，这导致了不明确的参考。MSES的父母表现出较高的人称参照和接近度框架，他们的孩子在这项任务中表现更好。