Poster #154 - The Pivotal Behavior Model: Parental Sensitivity and Children's Language Outcomes for Families in Rural Areas

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

This study examined the relationships among parental sensitivity, children’s social engagement, and children’s language abilities for parents and children who live in relatively economically disadvantageous areas in the United States. Data from the Family Life Project was used to test the pivotal behavior model proposed by Mahoney, Kim, and Lin (2007). Previous studies have found that children’s engagement behaviors mediate the effect of parental sensitivity/responsivity on a variety of developmental outcomes for children with developmental delays (Mahoney et al., 2007), and also mediate symbolic behaviors for typically developing children from Taiwan (Chiu et al., 2017). In the present study, this model is tested using an existing longitudinal dataset to see if children’s social engagement mediates the relationship between parental sensitivity and children’s later language abilities in rural areas in the United States. The Family Life Project (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR34602.v4) recruited a large sample (N = 1292) of low-income families in rural counties and collected data during the first three years of these children’s lives through home visits, childcare visits, and phone calls (Willoughby et al., 2013). In present examination of this dataset, parental sensitivity and children’s social engagement (persistence, enthusiasm and compliance) during parent-child interactions when children were 24 months, children’s language comprehension, language expression and fluency at 35 months, and children’s expressive language at 24 months are used to see if the relationship between parental sensitivity at 24 months and children’s language outcomes at 35 months is mediated by children’s social engagement at 24 months as children’s expressive language was controlled for. Structural equation modeling is used to perform this analysis. Of 1021 participants included in the analysis, 50.4% were males and 49.6% were females; 43% were African Americans and 57% were from other ethnic groups; 77.8% were from lower-income families and 22.2% were from higher-income families. The results indicate that the pivotal behavior model accounts for relationships among parental sensitivity, children’s engagement, and children’s language development among this sample of relatively impoverished families in the United States (see figure 1.). The direct effect of parental sensitivity at 24 months on Adaptive Language Inventory at 35 months was found to be significant. The indirect effect of parental sensitivity at 24 months on adaptive language inventory at 35 months through children’s social engagement at 24 months was also found to be significant (β = .03, p < .01). The fit indices suggest a good model fit, χ2 (17) = 47.383, p < .001, CFI = .991, TLI = .985, and RMSEA = .042. Thus, parental sensitivity appear to have a direct positive effect on children’s later language abilities, as well as an indirect positive effect on children’s later language abilities through children’s concurrent social engagement when children’s concurrent expressive language is controlled for. In other words, children’s language learning can be directly facilitated in parent-child interaction and indirectly promoted by parental sensitivity through children’s active engagement in activities. Future studies can focus on seeing if the pivotal behavior model is applicable to longitudinal data for other populations.

Authors

• Chun-Hao Chiu, Northern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Bradford H Pillow, Northern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author