Mother-Child Conversation in Different Social Classes and Communicative Settings

Abstract

30 working-class and 33 upper-middle-class mothers were videotaped in dyadic interaction with their 18-29-month-old children in 4 settings--mealtime, dressing, book reading, and toy play. Samples of the mothers' adult-directed speech also were collected. There were significant social class differences in the mothers' child-directed speech and some parallel social class differences in the mothers' adult-directed speech. These findings suggested that some social class differences in child-directed speech may be instances of more general class differences in language use. There also were main effects of communicative setting on mothers' child-directed speech and interaction effects in which setting moderated the size of the class differences in maternal speech. These findings suggested that the amount of time mothers spend interacting with their children in different contexts may be at least as important an influence on children's linguistic experience as are average characteristics of their mothers' speech.

The relationship between home literacy practices and developmental trajectories of emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills for Korean children

“…Previous studies with English-speaking families in the United States and French-speaking Canadian families demonstrated that shared book reading in particular can be a source of vocabulary learning (Ewers & Brownson, 1999;Sénéchal, 2006a) because children's books in English tended to contain more rare, academic words than those found in television or conversations (Hayes & Ahrens, 1988). Furthermore, mothers may use richer and more varied vocabulary during shared reading (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Snow & Ninio, 1986). Children's experience with print also provides opportunities for a child to recognize letters, thus enhancing their letter-name knowledge.…”

Family relationships during infancy and later mother and father vocabulary use with young children

“…Many studies have reported that mothers modify their speech to their young children in ways that support their early language learning through, for example, simplified language that is less complex grammatically, more redundant, and with a higher pitch and exaggerated intonation pattern (Fernald, 1989;Kavanaugh & Jirkovsky, 1982;Kitamura & Burnham, 2003;McRoberts & Best, 1997;Rondal, 1980;Snow, 1977). Numerous studies have found that the diversity of maternal vocabulary may be particularly important in predicting children's later language development and literacy (Bornstein et al, 1998;Hart & Risley, 1995;Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Hoff, 2003;Pan et al, 2005;Weizman & Snow, 2001). …”

“…The family environment of the home, as measured by the quality of parent/child interactions, parental language, and the provision of stimulating/sensitive caregiving, has been found to be an important proximal predictor of children's development (Bradley, Corwyn, Burchinal, Pipes-McAdoo, & Garcia Coll, 2001;Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005;Pancsofar & Vernon-Feagans, 2006; Tamis-Lemonda, Shannon, Cabrera, & Lamb, 2004). These studies have generally shown, through observation and questionnaires, that mothers who are more sensitive and engaging to their children during interactions and provide a more stimulating home environment, have children who are more skilled cognitively, linguistically, and socially.…”

“…Recent evidence suggests that parental language input, in particular, from both mothers and fathers may be important for children's later language development, in terms of more complex child language and vocabulary (Bornstein, Haynes, & Painter, 1998;Hart & Risley, 1995;Hoff, 2003;Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Pan et al, 2005;Pancsofar & Vernon-Feagans, 2006;Weizman & Snow, 2001). However, there is little research that examines the predictors of high quality language input to children beyond SES.…”

A Review of Reminiscing in Early Childhood Settings and Links to Sustained Shared Thinking

“…Findings from the parent-child research suggest that elaborative style during reminiscing is not related to talkativeness or elaborativeness in other contexts such as free play (Fivush et al 2011;Haden and Fivush 1996;Hoff-Ginsburg 1991). Research projects assessing early childhood educator elaborative style during, for example, free play or problem solving would provide a means of comparing these different types of interaction and potentially lead to an understanding of their developmental significance.…”