Maternal warmth moderates the longitudinal associations of family economic pressure with early reading and writing skills among Chinese children

Abstract

Little is known about the joint role of family poverty and parent-child relationships in the development of early literacy skills—a strong predictor of later cognitive and academic outcomes—among Chinese children. This study examined the longitudinal associations of family economic pressure with early Chinese reading and writing skills and tested maternal warmth as a moderator. Participants were 330 kindergarten children (mean age at Time 1 = 4.81 years; 56 % were girls) and their mothers from Hong Kong, China. Children completed tests on Chinese word reading and writing at Times 1 and 2; mothers completed questionnaires on family economic pressure and parental warmth at Time 1. Multilevel models indicated that family economic pressure was linked to declines in child Chinese word reading and writing skills for children with low but not high maternal warmth, highlighting the possibility of targeting maternal warmth to promote child development in financially disadvantaged Chinese families.