Growth Rate of Expressive Language Skills of Infants in Institutional Care: Turkish Care Type Study

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

It is a well established finding that children raised in institutions have various developmental delays and problems due to lack of individualized and sensitive care (Berument, 2013; Nelson, Bos, Gunnar and Sonuga-Barke, 2011). Evidence suggest more severe outcomes for younger children and infants (Nelson et al., 2007; Windsor et al., 2011) especially for language development (IJzendoorn et al., 2011). Therefore, the first aim of the current study was to compare the growth rate of infants in institutional care to the infants reared by their biological familis. The second aim was to examine unique and moderator effect of temperament on expressive language skills of infants in time.
A total of 180 infants aged between 8 and 23 months participated in the study (institution= 93 ; family= 87). Expressive language skills of infants were measured with TIGE (Aksu-Koç et al., 2008). Perceptual sensitivity and falling reactivity/rate of recovery from distress were measured as temperamental characteristics by the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (Gartstein & Rothbart,2003). Caregivers or mothers of the infants completed both scales. Hierarchical Linear Modelling was run to see the moderator effect of temperament and to compare institutional infants with the biological family group at three-time points (HLM: Version 7; Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheorg, & Congdon, 2004). Time was centered on the first data gathering point.
According to the results (see Table 1), expressive language skills of the female infants compared to males (b = -6.33, p <.05) and older infants compared to youngers (b = -.94, p <.01) were better at the first time point. Besides, interaction between care type and perceptual senstivity was marginally significant. According to slope analysis, infants with high perceptual senstivity were better if they were in biological family group compared to institituonal group (b = 32.51, p <.001). However, there was no group difference for the infants with low perceptual sensitivity.
For time slope, there was significant variability in time in the growth rate of expressive skills of the infants (b = -12.02, p <.01). The interaction between age and time slope was significant. According to simple slope analysis, the growth rate of younger infants decreased in time (b = -9.23, p<.01), while the growth rate of older infants increased (b = 9.37, p <.001). Care type and time slope were also significant and slope analysis result showed that language skills of the institutional infants decreased in time (b = -12.02, p <.001).
In addition, there was a significant three-way interaction between care type, reactivity and time slope. According to the slope analysis, biological family group infants who had high reactivity had faster growth rate in language skills compared to infants who had low reactivity (slope 1 and 2). High reactivity biological family raised infants showed faster growth rate compared to the institutionalized infants (slope 1 and 3). Low reactivity biological parent raised infants had faster growth rate compared to institutionalized group (slope 2 and 4) (see Figure 1).
Findings will be discussed in the light of the literature and from differential susceptibility perspective.

Authors

• Merve Gölcük, Antalya Bilim University
  Presenting Author

• Sibel KazakBerument, Middle East Technical University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gizem Koc, Psych
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zeynep Ertekin, Ankara Medipol University
  Non-Presenting Author