Turkish mothers’ self‐efficacy beliefs and styles of interactions with their children with language delays

Abstract

Turkish mothers’ self‐efficacy beliefs and their interactional behaviors with their children with language delays are described and explored. Participants included 19 mother–child dyads. Mothers’ interaction with their children with language delays was videotaped for 30 minutes in a free‐play context. Regarding mothers’ interactional behaviors, results indicate that most mothers were sensitive to the behaviors of their children, responsive and effective during interactions even though they occasionally expressed warmth through brief touches and vocal tone and showed little affective quality in body language, voice quality and facial expression. The very low use of verbal praise and very limited ways of interacting with the toys and materials provided were observed. It was also observed that encouragement of sensorimotor and cognitive development of their children was an essential issue for most mothers. Moreover, most were found directive during interactions. Results also indicated mothers had significantly high level of self‐efficacy beliefs and there were strong relationships between mothers’ self‐efficacy scores and their some interactional behaviors (achievement‐oriented behaviors and the use of verbal praise). The results are discussed extensively.