摘要：Preschool education is the primary stage of a child's educational voyage where the environment plays a pivotal role in their social and communication skills. Preschool education provides opportunities to engage children in activities where they may work on intellectual ability, expand the social circle, and also develop communication with others in a conducive atmosphere. The existing quantitative study aimed to investigate the impact of preschool education on children's social and communication skills at public and private schools in Lahore. The data was collected from 45 schools (23 Public and 22 Private). The sample contained 502 Grade I students where 251 (168 P & 83 non-p) from public and 251(210 P & 41 non-p) from private schools were selected. For data collection, two instruments were developed; (a) a questionnaire for the teachers adapted from the Social Skill Rating System (SSRS) developed by Gresham and Elliot (1990) for assessing students’ social skills, and (b) an interview protocol for the students to evaluate their communication ability. The instruments were validated through experts relevant to the field and the reliability of the pilot testing was at 0.87 points. Descriptive statistics were utilized to define the frequency of the data where inferential statistics consisted of independent sample t-test, ANOVA, and Post-hoc was applied to examine the variability between the students who had experienced preschool education with those who had not. The findings of the study revealed that students with preschool experience were significantly better in the development of social and communication skills with peers and teachers than the students who did not experience. The results indicated that preschool education nourishes students socially and trains them to communicate in a better way. The study also concluded that preschool education has positive effects on students’social and communicative development.
