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Thinking or feeling? An exploratory study of maternal scaffolding, child mental state talk and emotion understanding in language-impaired and typically-developing school-aged children
Background Mother–child mental state talk (MST) supports children's developing social–emotional understanding. In typically developing (TD) children, family conversations about emotion, cognition, and causes have been linked to children's emotion understanding. Specific language impairment (SLI) may compromise developing emotion understanding and adjustment. Aims We investigated emotion understanding in children with SLI and TD, in relation to mother–child conversation. Specifically, is cognitive, emotion, or causal MST more important for child emotion understanding and how might maternal scaffolding support this? Sample Nine 5- to 9-year-old children with SLI and nine age-matched typically developing (TD) children, and their mothers. Method We assessed children's language, emotion understanding and reported behavioural adjustment. Mother–child conversations were coded for MST, including emotion, cognition, and causal talk, and for scaffolding of causal talk. Results Children with SLI scored lower than TD children on emotion understanding and adjustment. Mothers in each group provided similar amounts of cognitive, emotion, and causal talk, but SLI children used proportionally less cognitive and causal talk than TD children did, and more such child talk predicted better child emotion understanding. Child emotion talk did not differ between groups and did not predict emotion understanding. Both groups participated in maternal-scaffolded causal talk, but causal talk about emotion was more frequent in TD children, and such talk predicted higher emotion understanding. Conclusions Cognitive and causal language scaffolded by mothers provides tools for articulating increasingly complex ideas about emotion, predicting children's emotion understanding. Our study provides a robust method for studying scaffolding processes for understanding causes of emotion.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
British Journal of Educational PsychologyISSN
0007-0998Publisher
WileyExternal DOI
Issue
2Volume
88Page range
261-283Department affiliated with
- Psychology Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2018-10-25First Open Access (FOA) Date
2018-10-25First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2018-10-24Usage metrics
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