Language development greatly contributes to the developed reading skills, school readiness, and school success of children. Generally, children who enter school have different skill levels, impacting their language growth, academic achievement, and cognitive development.
Also, children with poor language skills tend to be disadvantaged in psychosocial and employment as compared to their counterparts with a developed language.
There are numerous research findings on the causes of this and the prediction of the children at risk of language difficulties. Some predictions include a family history of poor language skills, socioeconomic backgrounds, and different ethnic backgrounds.
Gender has also been associated with measures of early language since it is believed that girls engage in literacy-related activities in the early stages than boys. While all these factors can help predict children at risk of language difficulties, more research still needs to be done to understand things that may promote or hinder language development.
Based on our research, parenting is important for early child development. This is particularly true when there is serve and return between the child and the caregiver. Basically, serve and return behaviors can help to influence communication between the parties involved and promote their language skills.
In the case of a mother and a child, the quality of interaction plays a key role in the child’s early language and learning.
Routine learning activities like storytelling, shared book reading can help expand a child’s conceptual knowledge, phonemic skills, and vocabulary growth.
As part of our research, we are studying the serve and return behaviors used by 2- year olds and their mothers during play. We intend to establish whether these behaviors can impact the language of the children.
Our research will seek to know why there are differences in language development and how children’s interactions with mothers could help address these issues.
