PURPOSE: Parent-child reading allows parents to extend the walls of their home to introduce their children to novel places and scenarios, and is an important factor shaping language development. Accordingly, the parent-child reading practices characterizing the home literacy environment (HLE) offer rich potential to boost and diversify language input and exposure in early childhood, especially if parents use shared reading experiences to spark conversational dialogue around novel concepts. To date, it remains unclear how shared reading experiences may promote language interaction and development in early childhood for late talker children. Furthermore, the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in contribution to the relationship between language development and shared book reading interactions in early childhood remains understudied. Therefore, there is a need to further specify characteristics of shared reading practices and SES in relation to parent-child conversational interactions and child language abilities in early childhood.
METHOD: 33 parent-child dyads (all mothers) of children classified as either late talkers (n = 15, 8 male) or typical controls (n=18, 9 male) were selected from an ongoing larger longitudinal study of language delay in collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University (PIs: Norton and Wakschlaug). Characteristics of parent-child conversational interactions during story book reading were assessed through language transcription and subsequent analysis of the quality and quantity of parent language input during these interactions. Parent language input measures and SES were evaluated for possible group differences between late talkers and typical controls, and subsequently examined as potential predictors of language status.
RESULTS: Parental language input during shared book reading significantly differed among dyads of late talkers compared to typical controls, as indicated by mean length of utterance (MLU) in words, MLU in morphemes, moving average type token ratio (TTR), and number of different words. SES differences in parent education were also identified between groups. MLU in morphemes was found to significantly contribute to the prediction of language status in toddlerhood.
CONCLUSION: Results suggest that the proximal factor of parent language input quality may be a more salient predictor of language development than the distal factors of SES for late talker children in particular. Findings highlight modifiable factors such as high-quality parent language input and shared book reading that have the potential to facilitate positive language outcomes for this population. These findings may lead to better guidance for adjustments that can be made within the HLE to improve language outcomes for late talker children.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/44464 |
| Date | 19 May 2022 |
| Creators | Stetson, Hannah Chelsea |
| Contributors | Zuk, Jennifer M. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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