Concurrent but not Early Maternal Sensitivity Predicts Children’s Preschool Age Receptive Vocabulary Ability

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Maternal sensitivity, defined as mothers’ contingent responses to children’s cues in non-distress contexts (Leerkes et al., 2012), has been linked with young children’s language abilities (Lee, Kuzava, & Bernard, 2020; Tamis-LeMonda, Kuchirko, & Song, 2014). The majority of research examining associations between maternal sensitivity and child language outcomes has been limited to sensitivity measured in infancy, with less evidence for the continued influence of sensitivity at subsequent ages (e.g., Downer & Pianta, 2019). To determine whether maternal sensitivity continues to represent a salient target of interventions aimed at improving developmental outcomes, it is important to examine the relative effects of sensitivity measured at different ages. Moreover, additional maternal variables such as mothers’ histories of childhood adversity, depressive symptoms, and sociodemographic disadvantage have each been linked with attenuated sensitivity (Bernard et al., 2018; Letourneau et al., 2013), but the comparative effects of each of these remains less clear. Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine the relative effects of maternal sensitivity measured in infancy and at preschool age on children’s preschool-age receptive vocabulary ability, accounting for the influence of maternal contextual variables on sensitivity.

Participants were 96 mothers and their infants 6 to 12 months of age (42% female) recruited from the community in a Northeast region of the United States. At an initial home visit (Time 1), mothers were video-recorded during free-play interactions with their infants and completed self-report questionnaires on sociodemographic characteristics, depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale; Radloff, 1977), and childhood adversity (Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire; Felitti et al., 1998). At Time 2, when children were 4 to 5 years of age (M = 49.10 months, SD = 2.82; n = 49), mothers and children were again video-recorded engaging in free-play during a lab visit, and children were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-5; Dunn, 2018). Mothers’ behaviors during interactions were subsequently coded for global ratings of maternal sensitivity using a 5-point scale adapted from NICHD Observational Ratings of the Caregiving Environment (ORCE; NICHD, 1999, 2003). Maternal sociodemographic disadvantage was calculated by summing four dichotomous indicators (i.e., single parenthood, maternal age at birth ≤ 21, education ≤ high school, income-to-needs ratio < 1). Depressive symptoms and ACE scores were summed across all items to create total scores. The hypothesized model (see Figure 1) was tested within a structural equation modeling framework in Mplus (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) using maximum likelihood estimator.

Results demonstrated significant and concurrent associations between Time 2 maternal sensitivity and children’s PPVT percentile scores, β = .31, p = .028, accounting for the effects of additional maternal variables on sensitivity. The association between sensitivity in infancy and preschool-age PPVT scores was nonsignificant, β = .18, p = .240. Moreover, only sociodemographic disadvantage was significantly and negatively associated with maternal sensitivity at both Time 1, β = -.42, p < .001, and Time 2, β = -.52, p < .001. Findings underscore the importance of continued intervention efforts targeting maternal sensitivity at later child ages among families facing greater sociodemographic disadvantage.

Authors

• Amy Hyoeun Lee, Hofstra University
  Presenting Author

• Kristin L Bernard, Stony Brook University
  Non-Presenting Author