The Interaction of the Quality of the Home Environment and Ethnicity on Chilean Preschoolers’ Vocabulary

• In Event: Home Language and Literacy Environment in Latin America – Family Processes, Child Outcomes, and Intervention Efforts

Abstract

Preschoolers’ oral language acquisition sets the stage for later reading ability, school achievement, overall educational attainment, and job success. Minority group children are at risk of developing language delays due to multiple collateral contextual forces that impinge on their family processes. More research is needed to better understand the mechanisms in ethnic minority group families on these child outcomes and relatively few studies have examined how ethnicity might moderate such associations in both favorable and unfavorable ways. This study investigated whether ethnicity (Mapuche indigenous minority versus Chilean majority) differentially moderates the associations between quality of the home environment and language acquisition (receptive and expressive vocabulary). Additionally, it was evaluated (1) whether the association between SES and receptive / expressive vocabulary was mediated by the quality of the home environment and (2) whether this mediation was moderated by ethnicity. The sample included 77 mothers from low-SES backgrounds and their 3½-year-old children. Results indicated that ethnicity significantly moderated the relation of the quality of the home environment on receptive vocabulary acquisition (and similarly albeit non-significantly for expressive vocabulary acquisition). Mapuche indigenous children seemed to be more susceptible to environmental influences in their homes compared to Chilean children: they showed lower receptive vocabulary gain in lower quality home environments and higher receptive vocabulary gain in higher quality home environments. Mediation analyses exploring the indirect effect from SES to children’s receptive and expressive language acquisition showed partial mediation through the quality of home environment. This mediation effect was moderated by ethnicity: it was found that the indirect effect (a-b path) was significant for receptive and expressive language in Mapuche minority homes, whereas the indirect effect was non-significant for receptive and expressive language in Chilean majority homes. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the family investment model and differential susceptibility model. Practical implications are explored for parenting intervention programs to prevent language development delays in early childhood in a bi-ethnic population in a Latin -American low-SES context. 

Author

• Regina Tahirih Lohndorf, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Presenting Author