Early language ability and the trajectory of internalizing problems across childhood: the mediating role of maternal parenting practices

Abstract

Early language problems and poor parenting practices are associated with more internalizing problems across childhood. However, scant research has directly examined the mediating role of parenting practices. Utilizing a sample of 309 mother-child dyads (49.8% females) from Singapore’s largest birth cohort study, we investigated whether maternal parenting practices mediate the association between children’s language abilities and growth trajectory of internalizing problems.

Child language ability at 2 years was assessed with the Bayley-III Language Scale. Mothers reported child internalizing problems at 4, 7, and 10.5 years using the Child Behavior Checklist. When children were 4.5 years old, mothers reported their own use of authoritative (connection, regulation, and autonomy-granting) and authoritarian parenting (physical coercion, verbal hostility, and non-reasoning) with the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire. Separate mediation analyses with latent growth curve modeling were conducted for the two parenting styles, while controlling for child sex.

Better language ability and greater use of authoritative parenting predicted faster decreases in internalizing problems (Bs = 0.11, 2.42, SEs = 0.04, 0.92, ps < .01). Additionally, there was a significant indirect effect of language ability on the trajectory of internalizing problems through mothers’ authoritative parenting (B = 0.02, SE = 0.10, 95% CI [.01, .04], p = .01), but not through their authoritarian parenting. Findings suggest that support for mothers to adopt more positive parenting practices aligned with authoritative parenting could expedite the decline in internalizing problems, which is of particular significance for children with language problems.