ERIC Number: EJ1332015
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-May
Pages: 17
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Speaking of State of Mind: Maternal Mental Health Predicts Children's Home Language Environment and Expressive Language
Clifford, Brandon Neil; Stockdale, Laura A.; Coyne, Sarah M.; Rainey, Vanessa; Benitez, Viridiana L.
Journal of Child Language, v49 n3 p469-485 May 2021
Maternal depression and anxiety are potential risk factors to children's language environments and development. Though existing work has examined relations between these constructs, further work is needed accounting for both depression and anxiety and using more direct measures of the home language environment and children's language development. We examined 265 mother-infant dyads (49.6% female, M[subscript age] = 17.03 months) from a large city in the Western United States to explore the relations between self-reports of maternal depression and anxiety and observational indices of the home language environment and expressive language as captured by Language Environment Analysis (LENA) and parent-reported language comprehension and production. Results revealed maternal depressive symptoms to be negatively associated with home language environment and expressive language indices. Maternal anxiety symptoms were found to be negatively associated with children's parent-reported language production. These findings provide further evidence that maternal mental health modulates children's home language environments and expressive language.
Descriptors: Mothers, Parent Child Relationship, Mental Health, Expressive Language, Anxiety, Symptoms (Individual Disorders), Language Acquisition, Risk, Child Development, Depression (Psychology), Infants, Measures (Individuals), Speech Communication, Family Environment, Prediction
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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