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. 2021 Mar 6;18(5):2671.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph18052671.

Variations in the Home Language Environment and Early Language Development in Rural China

Yue Ma  1 , Laura Jonsson  1 , Tianli Feng  2 , Tyler Weisberg  1 , Teresa Shao  1 , Zixin Yao  1 , Dongming Zhang  1 , Sarah-Eve Dill  1 , Yian Guo  1 , Yue Zhang  3 , Dimitris Friesen  1 , Scott Rozelle  1
Affiliations

Variations in the Home Language Environment and Early Language Development in Rural China

Yue Ma et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The home language environment is critical to early language development and subsequent skills. However, few studies have quantitatively measured the home language environment in low-income, developing settings. This study explores variations in the home language environment and child language skills among households in poor rural villages in northwestern China. Audio recordings were collected for 38 children aged 20-28 months and analyzed using Language Environment Analysis (LENA) software; language skills were measured using the MacArthur-Bates Mandarin Communicative Developmental Inventories expressive vocabulary scale. The results revealed large variability in both child language skills and home language environment measures (adult words, conversational turns, and child vocalizations) with 5- to 6-fold differences between the highest and lowest scores. Despite variation, however, the average number of adult words and conversational turns were lower than found among urban Chinese children. Correlation analyses did not identify significant correlations between demographic characteristics and the home language environment. However, the results do indicate significant correlations between the home language environment and child language skills, with conversational turns showing the strongest correlation. The results point to a need for further research on language engagement and ways to increase parent-child interactions to improve early language development among young children in rural China.

Keywords: child development; home language environment; individual differences; language development; rural China.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Study counties (dark blue) in Shaanxi province, China. Study counties clockwise from top: Suide, Heyang, Nanzheng, Chenggu, Mianxian. Source: Zhou et al. [29]. Sample counties colored using Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Inc., San Jose, CA, USA).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Distribution of Adult Word Count (AWC, N = 38). “SD” is defined as standard deviation.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Distribution of Conversational Turn Count (CTC, N = 38). “SD” is defined as standard deviation.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Distribution of Child Vocalization Count (CVC, N = 38). “SD” is defined as standard deviation.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Distribution of MacArthur–Bates Communicative Development Inventories scores (CDI, N = 38). “SD” is defined as standard deviation.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Difference in Communicative Development Inventories scores between top and bottom terciles of Adult Word Count.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Difference in Communicative Development Inventories scores between top and bottom terciles of Conversational Turn Count. ** p < 0.05.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Difference in Communicative Development Inventories scores between top and bottom terciles of Child Vocalization Count. *** p < 0.01.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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