A new British Academy study found that kids who used more “textisms” — abbreviations such as “plz” (please) and “l8ter” (later) — showed higher scores on some spelling, phonetics, reading comprehension and other English language competency tests.

The study examined 8- to 12-year-old children The study found that the more “textspeak” kids used, the higher their verbal IQ, reasoning, spelling and reading test scores. A high correlation was also found between spelling scores and the proportions of textisms. The kids who used the most textisms consisting of abbreviated words (like nite instead of night) or youth-type slang (wanna, gonna, hafta, etc.) were also high scorers on spelling tests.

In addition, the younger the age at which the kids had received mobile phones, the better their ability to read words and identify patterns of sound in speech — and the more textisms they used.

The reason for these findings is that as children’s reading ability is strongly predicted by exposure to written language, text messaging is simply another platform for kids to encounter words and play around with spelling and word choices.

Source: Txting Cld Help Kids Read Reg Eng, Digits – a Wall Street Journal blog, January 21, 2010

Tags: Texting, language skills