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Poster #151 - Maternal Influences on Toddlers' Communication and Socioemotional Competence

Thu, March 21, 12:30 to 1:45pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Depression affects one in ten women between 18-44 years in the United States (Center for Diseases Control, 2016) many of whom are mothers of young children. Maternal depressive symptomatology has been linked to withdrawal and disengaged behaviors often affecting maternal parenting skills and the quality of the mother-child interactions (Kaminer, Beebe, Jaffe, Kelly, & Marquette, 2007). Gaps exist in research pertaining to the mechanisms of maternal depression and maternal child-directed speech during play, and how these interact to influence toddlers’ communication abilities and socioemotional competence. The present study sought to explore the role of maternal depression on the different components of Maternal Child Directed Speech (MCDS) and to examine the interactions between maternal depressive symptoms and MCDS to influence children’s communication abilities and socioemotional competence.
Participants included 108 toddlers and their mothers enrolled in Early Head Start. Children were on average 22.2 (SD=6.5) months at the time of data collection and 55% were boys. Over half of the mothers in the sample (55%) graduated high school, and 52% identified as Hispanics. Measures included: The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977) as an indicator of parental depressive symptomology; the communication domain of the Batelle Developmental Inventory (BDI-2) for child’s communication abilities; and the Brief Infant Toddler Socioemotional Assessment (BITSEA) (Briggs-Gowan, Carter, Irwin, & Wachtel, 2004) to assess children’s social and emotional behavior. Mothers provided demographic information and were videotaped playing with their toddlers during the Three Bags Task. Based on these interactions four components of MCDS were examined: 1) quantity, 2) vocabulary diversity 3) language complexity and 4) communicative diversity. Data was transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES, MacWhinney, 2000) to assess quantity, vocabulary diversity, and language complexity. Further, a coding scheme was developed to measure maternal communicative diversity.
Multiple regression models indicated that maternal depression was not associated with any of the components of MCDS after controlling for age, gender, race/ethnicity, level of education and language. Depressive symptoms were only marginally associated with communicative diversity (b = .03, p < 0.06). Higher scores in maternal depressive symptoms explained 27% of the variance of children’s problem scores. Likewise, the number of words and types of words used by the mothers were significantly associated with children’s receptive communication abilities. Maternal depression symptoms moderated the relationship between maternal communicative diversity and children’s expressive communication abilities (b = -.08, p < 0.05).
Overall, this study differed from previous literature in that maternal depression was not related to quantity or quality of maternal child directed speech in the context of play. Further, maternal depression was related to children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, but was not associated with children’s communication outcomes. The moderation effect of depression in the relationship between communicative diversity and children’s expressive communication is an important finding that adds to the current literature. Results suggest the importance of considering other aspects beyond verbal input, including the way mothers deliver their speech to their children.

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