Essays on Parenting and Early Language Development

Abstract

Early childhood is a critical period for language acquisition, as heightened neuroplasticity amplifies the influence of children’s environments on their developmental outcomes. Since parents are the primary architects of their children’s early language environment, understanding the factors that influence parents’ decisions and practices is important for supporting children’s development. In my dissertation, I employ different methods and measures to investigate these factors in two contexts: France and the USA. In Study 1, I adopt a mixed-methods approach, analyzing survey and interview data from USA- based parents to examine the relationship between parents’ beliefs about the malleability of children’s verbal abilities and their language-related practices with their children, namely reading. In Study 2, I utilize survey data from France-based parents to study how their knowledge about child development, sense of parenting competence, and beliefs about the malleability of their children’s verbal abilities relate to their language-related practices with their toddlers and the latter’s vocabulary skills. In Study 3, I use interviews with highly educated France-based parents to probe their beliefs about early language development, focusing on their conceptualization of their role as parents and examining how their knowledge about child development informs their practices. In all three studies, I also consider contextual factors that could help or hinder parents’ language-related practices with their children, such as reading to their child or teaching them another language. Taken together, findings from these studies advance our understanding of the intricate relationships between parenting beliefs, practices, and child language development and how they vary across contexts. This work has implications for the contextually appropriate design of programs and policies that aim to support parents and their young children’s language development.