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. 2019 Nov;90(6):2001-2018.
doi: 10.1111/cdev.13065. Epub 2018 Apr 30.

Maternal Language and Child Vocabulary Mediate Relations Between Socioeconomic Status and Executive Function During Early Childhood

M Paula Daneri  1 , Clancy Blair  1 , Laura J Kuhn  2 ; FLP Key Investigators
Collaborators, Affiliations

Maternal Language and Child Vocabulary Mediate Relations Between Socioeconomic Status and Executive Function During Early Childhood

M Paula Daneri et al. Child Dev. 2019 Nov.

Abstract

This article examined longitudinal relations among socioeconomic risk, maternal language input, child vocabulary, and child executive function (EF) in a large sample (N = 1,009) recruited for a prospective longitudinal study. Two measures of maternal language input derived from a parent-child picture book task, vocabulary diversity (VOCD), and language complexity, showed variation by socioeconomic risk at child ages 15, 24, and 36 months. Maternal VOCD at child age 24 months and maternal language complexity at child age 36 months mediated the relation between socioeconomic risk and 48-month child EF, independent of parenting sensitivity. Moreover, 36-month child vocabulary mediated the relation between maternal language input and child EF. These findings provide novel evidence about mechanisms linking socioeconomic risk and child executive function.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Hypothesized models. Model 1 tests whether NDW and MLU at 15, 24, and 36 months mediate the association between 6-month SES-related risk and 48-month child executive function. In Model 2 we add child vocabulary as a mediator.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Disparities in maternal NDW and maternal MLU at 15, 24, and 36 months across early SES-related risk quartiles. The top panel (a) shows maternal NDW and the bottom panel (b) shows maternal MLU.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Standard coefficients of the direct effects that emerged from Model 2, which examined the extent to which NDW and MLU at 15, 24, and 36 months and child vocabulary mediated the association between 6-month SES-related risk and 48-month child executive function.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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