Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-19T06:15:08.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Communication patterns between internationally adopted children and their mothers: Implications for language development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

K. GAUTHIER*
Affiliation:
The Montreal Children's Hospital
F. GENESEE
Affiliation:
McGill University
M. E. DUBOIS
Affiliation:
Concordia University
K. KASPARIAN
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE K. Gauthier, Department of Psychology, The Montreal Children's Hospital, 4018 Ste-Catherine West, Montreal, QC H3Z 1P2, Canada. E-mail: karine.gauthier@mail.mcgill.ca

Abstract

This study presents findings on patterns of communication between internationally adopted children and their mothers in order to better understand the nature of these interactions and their influence on language learning. We examined maternal language use and joint attention behaviors of mothers and their children in 21 mother–child pairs: 10 pairs included children adopted from China living in francophone families, and 11 included francophone children living with their biological families; all were matched for socioeconomic status, sex, and age. The children were, on average, 15 months of age at initial testing when they were video-taped with their mothers for purposes of describing the mothers’ language use and the mothers’ and children's joint attention behaviors. Vocabulary development was assessed at 15 and again at 20 months of age using the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory. The results support the conclusion that adoptive mothers play an active role in promoting and maintaining joint attention and that the redirecting style they used the most and that correlated with their children's later vocabulary development contrasts with the following style that correlates with vocabulary development in nonadopted children raised in mainstream North American families.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akhtar, N. (2005). Is joint attention necessary for early word learning? In Homer, B. D. & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (Eds.), The development of social cognition and communication. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Akhtar, N., & Gernsbacher, M. A. (2007). Joint attention and vocabulary development: A critical look. Language and Linguistic Compass, 1/3, 195207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arriaga, R. I.., Fenson, L., Cronan, T., & Pethick, S. J. (1998). Scores on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory of children from low- and middle-income families. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 209223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakeman, R., & Adamson, L. B. (1984). Coordinating attention to people and objects in mother–infant and peer–infant interaction. Child Development, 55, 12781289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baldwin, D. A. (1991). Infants’ contribution to the achievement of joint reference. Child Development, 62, 875890.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, S. B., Gutfreund, M., Satterly, D. J., & Wells, C. G. (1983). Characteristics of adult speech which predict children's language development. Journal of Child Language, 10, 6584.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benedict, H. (1979). One word at a time: The use of single-word utterances before syntax. Journal of Child Language, 6, 183200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J. (1975). From communication to language—A psychological perspective. Cognition, 3, 255287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, M., Nagel, K., & Tomassello, M. (1998). Social cognition, joint attention and communicatice competence from 9 to 15 months. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chisholm, K., Carter, M. C., Ames, E. W., & Morison, S. J. (1995). Attachment security and indiscriminately friendly behavior in children adopted from Romanian orphanages. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 283294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Geer, B. (1992). Internationally adopted children in communication: A developmental study. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.Google Scholar
Flanagan, P., Coppa, D., Riggs, S., & Alario, A. (1994). Communicative behavior of infants of teen mothers. Journal of Adolescent Health, 15, 169175.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Floor, P., & Akhtar, N. (2006). Can 18-month-old infants learn words by listening in on conversations? Infancy, 9, 327339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, I., Poulin-Dubois, D., & Trudeau, N. (1997). Inventaire MacArthur du Développement de la Communication: Mots et énoncés. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Glennen, S. L. (2005). New arrivals: Speech and language assessment for internationally-adopted infants and toddlers within the first months home. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26, 1021.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glennen, S. L. (2007). Predicting language outcomes for internationally adopted children. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 50, 529548.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Glennen, S., & Masters, M. G. (2002). Typical and atypical language development in infants and toddlers adopted from Eastern Europe. American Journal of Speech–Language Pathology, 11, 47433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldsmith, D. F., & Rogoff, B. (1997). Mothers’ and toddlers’ coordinated joint focus of attention: Variations with maternal dysphoric symptoms. Developmental Psychology, 33, 113119.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gunnar, M. R., Bruce, J., & Grotevant, H. D. (2000). International adoption of institutionally reared children: Research and policy. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 677693.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, S., Kasari, C., & Sigman, M. D. (1996). Joint attention and language gains in children with Down Syndrome. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 100, 608619.Google ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E. (2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review, 26, 5588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hwa-Froelich, D. A., & Matsuoh, H. (2008). Cross-cultural adaptation of internationally adopted Chinese children: Communication and symbolic behavior development. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 29, 149165.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kavanaugh, R. D., & Jirkovsky, A. M. (1982). Parental speech to young children: A longitudinal analysis. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 28, 297311.Google Scholar
Krakow, R., & Roberts, J. A. (2003). Acquisition of English vocabulary by young Chinese adoptees. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 1, 169176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krakow, R. S., Tao, S., & Roberts, J. (2005). Adoption age effect on English language acquisition: Infants and toddlers from China. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26, 3343.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lejeune, B. C. (2007). The effects of attachment and social pragmatic skills on language learning in internationally adopted children (UMI No. 3263598). Dissertation Abstracts International, 68.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B., & Snow, C. (1990). Child Language Data Exchange System: An update. Journal of Child Language, 17, 457472.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mahoney, C., Fors, S., & Wood, S. (1990). Maternal directive behavior revisited. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 94, 398406.Google ScholarPubMed
Masur, E. F., Flynn, V., & Eichorst, D. L. (2005). Maternal responsive and directive behaviours and utterances as predictors of children's lexical development. Journal of Child Language, 32, 6391.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, L. C., & Hendrie, N. W. (2000). Health of children adopted from China. Pediatrics, 105, 16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morales, M., Mundy, P., Delgado, C. E. F., Yale, M., Messinger, D. S., Neal, R., et al. (2000). Responding to joint attention across the 6- to 24-month age period and early language acquisition. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21, 283298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A., & Snow, C. E. (1996). Pragmatic development. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Oshima-Takane, Y., & Oram, J. (2002). Caregiver interaction strategies and lexical development in English-speaking children. Research Bulletin of Tokyo University of Social Welfare, 1, 4760.Google Scholar
Oshima-Takane, Y., Oram, J., Alabanese, S., & Browning, A. (1994). Parental attention regulation: Coding manual. Montreal: McGill University.Google Scholar
Oshima-Takane, Y., & Robbins, M. (2003). Linguistic environment of secondborn children. First Language, 23, 2140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, K. (2005). Early language growth in children adopted from China: Preliminary normative data. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26, 2232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Prizant, B., Wetherby, A., & Roberts, J. (1993). Communication disorders in infants and toddlers. In Zeanah, C. (Ed.), Handbook of infant mental health. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, J. A., Pollock, K. E., & Krakow, R. (2005). Continued catch-up and language delay in children adopted from China. Seminars in Speech and Language, 26, 7685.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rudd, L. C., Cain, D. W., & Saxon, T. F. (2008). Does improving joint attention in low-quality child-care enhance language development? Early Child Development and Care, 178, 315338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaife, M., & Bruner, J. S. (1975). The capacity for joint visual attention in the infant. Nature, 253, 265266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimpi, P. M., & Huttenlocher, J. (2007). Redirective labels and early vocabulary development. Journal of Child Language, 34, 845859.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snedeker, J., Geren, J., & Shafto, C. (2007). Starting over: International adoption as a natural experiment in language acquisition. Association for Psychological Science, 18, 7887.Google Scholar
Tan, T. X., Dedrick, R. F., & Marfo, K. (2007). Factor structure and clinical implications of child behaviour checklist/1.5–5 ratings in a sample of girls adopted from China. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 32, 807818.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, T. X., & Yang, Y. (2005). Language development of Chinese adoptees 18–35 months old. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 20, 5768.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Farrar, M. J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development, 57, 14541463.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M., & Todd, J. (1983). Joint attention and lexical acquisition style. First Language, 4, 197211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trautman, C. H., & Rollins, P. R. (2006). Child-centered behaviors of caregivers with 12-month-old infants: Associations with passive joint engagement and later language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, 447463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trudeau, N., Frank, I., & Poulin-Dubois, D. (1997). Inventaire MacArthur du Développement de la Communication: Mots et gestes. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Vigil, D. C. (2002). Cultural variations in attention regulation: A comparative analysis of British and Chinese-immigrant populations. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 37, 433458.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vigil, D. C., Tyler, A. A., & Ross, S. (2006). Cultural differences in learning novel words in an attention-following versus attention-directing style. Journal of Multilingual Communication Disorders, 4, 5970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watt, N., Wetherby, A., & Shumway, S. (2006). Prelinguistic predictors of language outcome at 3 years of age. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 12241237.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westerlund, M., & Lagerberg, D. (2008). Expressive vocabulary in 18-month-old children in relation to demographic factors, mother and child characteristics, communication style and shared reading. Child: Care, Health and Development, 34, 257266.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wetherby, A., & Prizant, B. (2002). Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales—Developmental profile manual: First normed edition. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.Google Scholar
Yont, K. M., Snow, C. E., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2003). Is chronic otitis media associated with differences in parental input at 12 months of age? An analysis of joint attention and directives. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 581602.CrossRefGoogle Scholar