Maternal question use and child language outcomes: The moderating role of children's vocabulary skills and socioeconomic status

Abstract

Question use is a key feature of high-quality language input and supports language development. The current study examined how different types of maternal questions were associated with children's language outcomes, and how the associations were moderated by children's existing vocabulary skills and family socioeconomic status. Participants were 165 mothers and their 2-year-olds from the study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Mother-child interactions during book-reading and toy play were video-recorded and coded for three types of questions: Yes or No (Y/N; e.g., “Is that a doggy?”), referential (e.g., “What's that?”), and advanced questions (e.g., “What will happen next?”). Child vocabulary at age 2 and receptive and expressive language skills at age 3 were assessed using standardized measures. Results suggested that Y/N questions and referential questions uniquely contributed to children's receptive language 1 year later. Yet, the benefit of referential questions did not generalize to children with small vocabularies at age 2. The association between referential questions and children's receptive language was stronger for children from families with lower-socioeconomic status, highlighting the possibility for intervention in this area. Together, these findings reveal the critical role of individual and contextual factors in language-learning mechanisms.