Siblings' Impact on Caregiver-Infant Interactions and its Relationship with Language Outcomes
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Objectives: Child early language environment is a critical factor in children's language development and future achievement. This thesis explored whether birth order affects one aspect of language environment, namely parent-child interaction, and language development in children with hearing loss as compared with children with normal hearing (NH). \n \nDesign: LENA software recorded the participants' daylong natural language environment and automated the conversational turn count per hour. A total of 19 children with cochlear implants (CIs), 17 children with hearing aids (HAs), and 36 NH peers participated in our study. Expressive vocabulary was measured by The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI) Words and Sentences test. Participants were separated into two groups (Firstborn and last-born) based on their birth order. Firstborns are the oldest or only child and last-borns are the youngest child in the family. \n \nResults: Findings showed that CI last-borns had received a greater number of conversational turns than their firstborn counterparts, in contrast to firstborn HA participants having a larger exposure of conversational turns. NH firstborns and last-borns received similar numbers of conversational turns. Moreover, findings revealed firstborn HA and NH children had higher language outcome scores, compared to their younger siblings. While CI children had similar scores. \n \nConclusions: Future research and a larger sample size is needed to confirm this study's preliminary evidence, suggesting birth order affects parent-child interactions and language outcomes in children with hearing loss. These findings may inform early intervention programs to educate parents to be mindful to expose all of their children, regardless of age and birth order, with comparable input.
Author: Lauren Fern
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3116942932