Ebeveynlik ile sözel beceri arasındaki ilişkide tepkiselliğin rolü

According to the ecological systems theory, characteristics of the developing child interact with his/her ecology in shaping the child?s developmental outcomes (Bronfenbrenner, 1992). This study examines how one temperamental characteristic of the child, i.e., reactivity, moderates the association of parenting behaviors (positive parenting, academic stimulation, punishment) with verbal abilities of children. In this thesis, the first two waves of the nationally representative data of The Early Childhood Developmental Ecologies in Turkey (ECDET) are used (N=1052 at age 3). Reactivity is defined as the temperamental tendency to express negative emotional reactions to changes in the environment. In the literature, children who had high reactivity were found to be vulnerable to environmental risks and they develop or function poorly in the presence of risk factors. However, differential susceptibility theory considers reactivity as an indicator of plasticity rather than an indicator of vulnerability. According to this hypothesis, children with high reactivity tend to be more sensitive to both the risks and the positive aspects of their developmental ecologies than other children. In this research, I tested whether children who are highly reactive have better verbal skills than other children when the mothers are supportive. Results provided limited support for the differential susceptibility theory. In the presence of a high level of academic stimulation, highly reactive children benefited from this stimulation more than others and their receptive vocabulary levels were higher than other children. However, in line with diathesis-stress theory, other positive parenting practices only reduced the gap between children with high and low reactivity. This research not only provided evidence for the differential susceptibility theory in a collectivistic culture but also suggested that this theory awaits cross-cultural validation.