TY - JOUR PY - 2020// TI - Parental behaviors associated with the level of pragmatic language ability among 42-month-old neglected children JO - Child abuse and neglect A1 - Di Sante, Mélissa A1 - Sylvestre, Audette A1 - Bouchard, Caroline A1 - Leblond, Jean SP - e104482 EP - e104482 VL - 104 IS - N2 - BACKGROUND: Exposure to neglect can severely compromise children's pragmatic skills (social language use). The disruptions of parent-child interactions that typically occur in context of neglect may compromise several parental behaviors which are known to foster language skills such as pragmatics.

OBJECTIVES: 1- Compare the behaviors of neglectful and non-neglectful parents in four domains which are of interest for pragmatic language development, namely, responsive, supportive, affective, and control behaviors, and 2- Identify parental behaviors associated with the levels of pragmatic ability of 42-month-old neglected children. PARTICIPANTS: Study sample consisted of 21 neglected children living in their biological family, recruited in four Youth Centers in the province of Québec (Canada) and 95 non-neglected children recruited in child-care centers.

METHOD: Parental behaviors were video recorded in context of free-play with the child at the participants' homes between 2015 and 2017, and subsequently analyzed using the Coding Observations of Parent-Child Interactions (COPI), developed to observe ten parental behaviors associated with early language development. The level of pragmatic ability of children was established using the Language Use Inventory: French, a standardized questionnaire completed with parents of both groups.

RESULTS: Parents in situation of neglect scored lower than parents in the control group on eight of the ten behaviors (p < .001). Parental reciprocity was associated with the level of pragmatic ability of 42-month-old neglected children (p = .04).

CONCLUSIONS: The results of this exploratory study provide insight on the associations between parental behaviors and the level of pragmatic language skills of children experiencing neglect.

Crown Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0145-2134 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104482 ID - ref1 ER -