Young Children’s Language and Socioemotional Development: The Role of Family Background
Authors:   , Huang Wei 
Published: October 2023

Given the importance of early language and socioemotional skills in children’s later lives, it is important to understand the early emergence of these skills. Although studies have shown that the level of both skills differ by family background from early on, there are still important gaps in previous research (e.g., mixed or contradictory findings). This dissertation investigated the impact of family background on children’s language and socioemotional development in early childhood. Especially, the mediating pathways through different parenting behaviors as well as domain-specific parenting behaviors have been examined to identify a more specific correlation between family background and children’s outcomes. In addition, children’s early language was also considered as an additional pathway linking family background and children’s later socioemotional outcomes. Furthermore, given the inconsistent findings on the association between children’s language and socioemotional development, this dissertation also conducted an in-depth investigation of this association by considering language-related family background (i.e., extent of speaking majority and minority languages at home), which might account for the inconsistent findings. Differ from previous studies which only controlled for children’s language backgrounds, this dissertation explicitly studied whether the directionality of this association differs between children with different language backgrounds. Drawing on two nationally representative data sets, Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) from the UK and the German National Educational Panel Study – Newborn Cohort Study (NEPS-SC1), three empirical studies using sophisticated statistical techniques—structural equation modeling—have been conducted to address the research questions of the current dissertation. Study 1 investigated mediational protective and risk pathways linking socioeconomic status (SES; e.g., parental education) and 5-year-olds’ behavioral difficulties in two large-scale samples (Nmcs = 13,053; Nneps = 2,022). Models considered parental sensitivity and advanced child vocabulary as protective pathways connecting parental education with children’s behavioral outcomes; the risk pathways focused on negative parental disciplinary practices linking (low) parental education, parental distress, and children’s difficult temperament to children’s behavioral difficulties. Further, all analyses controlled for families’ income, the child’s sex, and formal child care attendance. The results showed that the hypothesized models fitted both data sets well. Children with higher educated parents experienced comparatively more sensitive interactive behavior, had more advanced vocabulary, and exhibited fewer behavioral difficulties. Children with parents who suffered from distress tended to experience more negative disciplinary behavior and exhibited more behavioral difficulties. Additionally, children’s advanced vocabulary served as a mechanism mediating the association between parental education and children’s (lower) behavioral difficulties. Overall, similar patterns of results were substantiated across the UK and Germany. Study 2 investigated whether specific aspects of parental sensitivity differentially mediated the association between SES (i.e., maternal education) and children’s domain-specific outcomes using NEPS-SC1 (N = 2,478). More specifically, cognitive-verbally stimulating parenting behavior and socioemotionally supportive parenting behavior were modelled to differentially link maternal education and children’s language at 26 months and social competence at age 3. The model controlled for family net income, single parenthood, migration background, mother’s depressive feelings, and child’s negative affectivity. Multiple imputation by chained equations was applied to handle missing values. The model revealed a good fit to the data. The results indicated that the mother’s cognitive-verbally stimulating parenting behavior was specifically related to the children’s language skills, whereas the mother’s socioemotionally supportive parenting behavior exclusively correlated with children’s later social competence. These two separable parenting behaviors also differentially mediated the association between maternal education and toddler’s language and social competence. Similar to Study 1, children’s language additionally connected maternal education, specific parental sensitivity (i.e., cognitive-stimulating parenting behavior), and children’s social competence. Study 3 examined the directionality of the association between children’s majority language and socioemotional development at ages 3 and 5 by considering language-related family background (N = 12,951). The cross-lagged models using MCS controlled for family background, early extrafamilial care attendance, and child’s sex. The model fit indices indicated that the analyzed models fitted the data well. Results indicated a bidirectional association for monolingual children, a unidirectional effect of majority language on socioemotional development for Dual Language Learners (DLLs) who speak English and minority language(s) at home, and a unidirectional effect of socioemotional development on majority language for DLLs who only speak minority language(s) at home. Overall, the results demonstrated the differential mediating effects of different parenting behaviors on the association between family background and children’s language and socioemotional outcomes. In addition, children’s early language has been substantiated to additionally link family background and children’s later socioemotional outcomes. Finally, this dissertation also found that the association between children’s majority language and socioemotional development differ between children with different language-related family backgrounds. Drawing on findings from the current dissertation, practical implications for early preventive programs are discussed.