Poster #153 - Variability in Mother-child Interaction as a Function of Language During Bilingual Play

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Language is the most immediate and relevant means to convey affect and information. Most children in Singapore are brought up bilingually (Lee, 2016). There is scant knowledge, however, about the influence that mothers’ use of different languages with children has on mother-child interaction.

This study investigated mother-child interaction variability as a function of language during bilingual play using a multi-level approach, with behavioral and physiological measures. This study assessed the effect of the child’s language dominance on mother-child emotional availability and the dyad’s heart rate variability (HRV) synchrony.

Eighteen Singaporean Chinese mother-child dyads, child aged 16 – 20 months, were asked to play in their homes naturally with a standard set of age-appropriate toys (Bornstein et al., 1996), while the mother spoke only in Mandarin and English for 10 minutes each. Electrocardiography and video recordings were obtained. As a behavioural measure of mother-child interaction, mother and child emotional availability was scored using Emotional Availability (EA) Scales (Biringen, Robinson, & Emde, 1998). High scores indicated greater EA. For the physiological aspect of mother-child interaction, rMSSD , a measure of HRV, was obtained from which mother-child rMSSD synchrony scores (SS) were computed using diffusion time warping (DTW). SS ranged from 0 (no synchrony) – 1 (high synchrony). Mothers completed questionnaires about child’s language usage, from which a dominance score (DS) was calculated such that high positive scores indicated high dominance in English and lower negative scores indicated greater dominance in Mandarin. Recursive partitioning (tree-based models) was conducted to analyse how mother EA and language dominance predicted SS and child EA.

Children with higher dominance in English (DS > 21) showed higher responsiveness and involvement during the English-language play session. However, this result was conditioned mother-child dyads with lower HRV synchrony (rMSSD SS = 0.515). Similarly, a higher dominance in English (DS > 29.5) predicted higher mother-child HRV synchrony when maternal sensitivity was low (<6.5) during English-language play session. Furthermore, children with higher dominance in Mandarin (DS < -5) showed higher mother-child HRV synchrony during Mandarin-language play session.

During the English-language play session, high EA (Responsiveness and Involvement) in children was also predicted by high maternal Non-Intrusiveness (>5.5) and Structuring (>5.5), respectively. Language dominance in English further stratified the distribution such that when maternal Non-Intrusiveness was high, dominance in English (>0.04) predicted higher child Responsiveness.

Language dominance seems to act as a protective factor, enabling optimal emotional availability in children and mother-child physiological synchrony. Our findings have practical implications in developing good balanced bilingual skills to optimise social experiences, such as mother-child interactions.

Authors

• Bindiya Lakshmi Raghunath, Nanyang Technological University
  Presenting Author

• Maria del Carmen Rostagno, University of Trento, Italy
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peipei Setoh, Nanyang Technological University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marc H. Bornstein, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development & Institute for Fiscal Studies, London, UK
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gianluca Esposito, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; University of Trento, Italy
  Non-Presenting Author