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8 - Parent–Child Interaction and Its Impact on Language Development

from Part One - Factors Influencing Language Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 August 2022

By
Penny Levickis ,
Laura Conway ,
Jodie Smith  and
Shannon Bennetts
Edited by
James Law ,
Sheena Reilly  and
Cristina McKean
James Law
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Sheena Reilly
Affiliation:
Griffith University, Queensland
Cristina McKean
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Summary

It has become increasingly accepted that language development is a product of both neurobiology and the environment. These intersect at the point of daily language interactions between parent and child, whereby language learning occurs through the interaction of a child’s genetically based characteristics and the child’s language experience. This chapter provides the reader with an overview of research on parent–child interaction and language development and considers important interaction features related to early language acquisition, in particular maternal responsiveness. The chapter also explores issues around measures of parent–child interaction, as, traditionally, observational measures of parent–child interaction have been expensive and time-consuming, limiting the use of these measures to small clinical samples. The development of new technologies has improved our ability to reliably measure parent–child interaction, enabling researchers to collect parent–child interaction data in larger samples, assisting us to understand the contribution of different features of parent–child interaction to language development at a population level. This chapter also provides insights into the long-term contributions of early parent–child interaction to child language and learning outcomes from a large community-based sample of mother–child dyads.

Keywords

childlanguageparent–child interactionmother–child interactionlongitudinal datamaternal responsiveness
Type
Chapter
Information
Language Development
Individual Differences in a Social Context
 , pp. 166 - 192
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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