Anne davranışları ve ortak dikkat süreçlerinin anne eğitim seviyesi ile bebeklerin dil gelişimi arasındaki ilişkide aracılık rolü oynaması

One of the social contexts for children to learn their language is joint attentional (JA) interactions between adults and children. Specific maternal behaviors such as sensitiveness and intrusiveness have been found to be related to both maternal education levels and children' language development. Previous work has not explored how maternal behaviors are related to characteristics of JA episodes in mother-infant interaction and whether maternal education levels and maternal behaviors influence the language outcomes through JA episodes. The first aim of the study is to reveal which positive (e.g., sensitiveness) and negative (e.g., control) maternal behaviors are correlated with quantitative (e.g., frequency, duration) and qualitative (e.g., initiated by whom) features of JA episodes in mother-infant interactions. The second aim of the study is to investigate whether maternal education levels and maternal behaviors affect JA episodes in mother-infant dyads and in turn influence infants' language development. Fifty caregiver-infant dyads were video recorded during free play when the infants were 12 months old; expressive and receptive vocabulary of the infants were assessed at 14-months. The free play videos were coded for maternal behaviors (positive behaviors: sensitiveness, cognitive stimulation, positive affect; negative behaviors: negative affect, control) and JA characteristics (frequency, duration, initiated by maternal following or directing, being passive or coordinated, terminated by mother or infant). Results indicated that positive maternal behaviors were positively correlated with the mean duration of JA episodes and percentage of coordinated JA episodes while they were negatively correlated with the percentage of JA episodes terminated by mothers. Negative maternal behaviors were negatively related to mean duration of JA episodes and percentage of JA episodes initiated by maternal following. Further, we found an indirect relationship between maternal education levels and expressive language scores of infants which was mediated by maternal controlling levels and JA episodes initiated by maternal following or directing. Findings indicated that maternal behaviors play a crucial role in features of JA interaction in mother-infant dyads. Further, results support that maternal education level have an effect on language development of children via parenting and quality of mother-child interactions.