Mothers’ depressive symptoms and their children’s Turkish heritage language vocabulary development

Abstract

Aims: This study examined associations between mothers’ depressive symptoms and the Turkish heritage vocabulary of their school-age children. We expected that mothers’ depressive symptoms would be associated with lower Turkish vocabulary scores in fourth grade as well as slower growth in vocabulary scores from fourth to sixth grade. Design: We collected longitudinal data on 139 mothers of Turkish origin in Germany and their children in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. Mothers reported on the level of their depressive symptoms, and children were administered a Turkish receptive vocabulary test. Analysis: Data were analyzed with growth curve modeling. Findings and conclusions: Mothers’ depressive symptoms were not significantly associated with children’s vocabulary in fourth grade. However, mothers’ depressive symptoms did predict slower growth in children’s vocabulary from fourth to sixth grade. The higher a mother’s depressive symptoms score, the slower the growth of her child’s Turkish vocabulary. Originality: To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the association between mothers’ depressive symptoms and their children’s vocabulary development during the school-age years, and the second to examine it for heritage language development. Significance and implications: Our findings suggest that mothers’ depressive symptoms may be one risk factor limiting parents in successfully passing on the heritage language to their children, even during school-age. Families as well as medical, psychological, and educational professionals should be made aware of the role of mothers’ depressive symptoms in their children’s language development.