The Impact of Parent and Child Responsiveness on the Association between Printed Materials in the Home and Child Language Development By

Research evidence indicates that both the physical and social environments in children’s homes impact their ability to develop language. These factors, however, are rarely considered simultaneously nor is the combined impact of multiple levels of the child’s environment often investigated in a single study. The current study considered the direct influence of access to printed materials in the home, child responsiveness, and parental responsiveness on language development two time points in a sample of 71 mother-child dyads. Printed materials were measured using a combination of observation and maternal report. Child and parent responsiveness were measured during an observation task and child language development was measured using the Preschool Language Scale. It was hypothesized that each of these variables would positively predict language development when the child was 10 and 24 months old. The possible moderating effects of both parental and child responsiveness on the association between printed materials and child language development was also investigated. Although the hypotheses were not supported, implications, such as the inclusion of subtypes of parental responsiveness and the need to study these associations within diverse samples are discussed.