Predictors of Variation in Maternal Talk to Children: A Longitudinal Study of Low-Income Families

Objective. The goals of this study were (1) to examine the extent of variation in and lexical diversity of maternal talk to young children within a sample low-income families, (2) to determine the patterns of change over time in maternal during the early childhood years, and (3) to consider specific predictors variation in maternal communicative input. Design. Low-income – child dyads (n = 108) were videotaped at child ages 14, 24, and 36 during semistructured play in the home. Videotapes were transcribed analyzed using the conventions of the Child Language Data Exchange System determine amount (word tokens) and lexical diversity (word types) of talk to children. Background information collected from mothers at entry served as predictors of variation in communicative input. Individual modeling methods were used to analyze data. Results. Mothers varied in the number of tokens and types produced during interaction. were found to increase in their total amount of talk and diversity of vocabulary children aged. In addition to child age, maternal education, language literacy skills, depression, and age helped explain variation in level maternal talk, but none of the predictors explained variation in growth. Different of predictors explained variation in tokens versus types. . Findings highlight the importance of studying specific predictors parental talk to children, as even in low-income samples large variation in input is evident.