Understanding the Role of the Home Environment in Chinese Preschoolers’ Language Development

Abstract

Preschool-aged children’s oral language skills are among the strongest predictors of their achievements in school. However, the ways in which the home environment supports preschoolers’ oral language development are not well understood in the context of Mainland China. This dissertation explores how diverse aspects of Chinese children’s home environment, including caregiver education, knowledge about child development, home learning activities, and caregiver communicative input, individually and jointly predict children’s oral language development. In particular, it focuses on one form of input found to facilitate children’s oral language skills in English-speaking, Western populations: decontextualized language (DL), language referring to abstract or displaced concepts, entities, individuals, or events (e.g., causal explanations; recalling past events). This dissertation includes three papers: a comprehensive literature review on the core features, variation, and developmental implications of caregiver DL input, a cross-cultural comparative study of DL use during Chinese and American caregiver-child interactions, and a longitudinal study investigating associations between the home environment (including DL input) and Chinese children’s oral language skills. Findings provide a theoretical foundation for culturally sensitive interventions aimed at helping Chinese caregivers understand the power of the home environment in supporting children’s language development. Empowering Chinese caregivers can be a critical step towards enhancing children’s oral language skills and mitigating the SES-based achievement gap in China.