Cultural Differences in Beliefs and Practices Concerning Talk to Children

Abstract

Sporadic observations of non-Western culture groups have made it clear that the large literature on child-directed talk primarily describes Western parent-child interaction patterns. The current study used a survey instrument to contrast the childrearing beliefs and related verbal interaction practices of Chinese and Western mothers of preschoolers. Stepwise regression procedures indicated that culture differences in ratings for 6 belief statements and 5 interaction patterns accounted for 66-67% of the total variance. Discriminate functions derived from the regression analyses identified members of the two culture groups with 94-95% accuracy. The findings call into question the advice commonly given to parents of children with language delay and point to specific areas where practices more harmonious with Chinese culture could be recommended.

Bridging the Research and Cultural-Practice Gap in Early Language Intervention in Malaysia

“…A few studies on the interaction between Malaysian mothers and their adolescent children (Elias & Tan 2009;Keshavarz & Baharudin 2009;Lin & Lian 2011) revealed that Malaysian mothers tend to have expectations that their adolescent children follow their directives either unconditionally (i.e., authoritarian) or with rooms for explanations and negotiations (i.e., authoritative). The findings of culture-specific language teaching beliefs in Malaysia are consistent with findings pertaining to other collectivist cultures, such as those on the Chinese (Johnston & Wong 2002) and Indian mothers (Simmons & Johnston 2007) in Canada, and Chinese mothers in the UK (Vigil 2002). The mothers of these studies demonstrated (1) culture-specific preferences such as the use of instructions over play to teach young children language and (2) more attention-directing behaviours than attention sharing with their young children.…”

Opportunities for the Development of Communicative Competence for Children in an Orphanage in South Africa

“…Allied to responsiveness is child-directed speech, defined as the modification of various parameters of the adult's speech and language when talking to young children, which is thought to have facilitative effects on a child's subsequent language development (de Boer, 2005;Pine, 1994). There are few universals in child-directed speech (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Ratner & Pye, 1984;Snow, 1995) and different cultures exert their own influence on the type of adjustments made (Johnston & Wong, 2002;Kajikawa, Amano, & Kondo, 2004;Lieven, 1994). Although very little has been written with reference to how parents talk to children in African cultures, there is evidence of modifications of various components of language including the structural aspects, the words used, the behaviours of the adults, as well as modified speech.…”

Child-directed speech: relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child development and child vocabulary skill

“…While knowledge of child development in general and knowledge of language development in particular are likely related, more information on parents' beliefs about language development may provide a more specific means of interpretation for the relation between parental beliefs and child-directed speech. Johnston & Wong (2002) developed a questionnaire on beliefs and practices concerning talk to children, yet there is no available validity or psychometric data on the measure. A valid and reliable instrument on parental beliefs about child language development and communication with children would be a very useful tool for the fields of child language development, parenting and early intervention.…”