Maternal Language and Children's Receptive Language Five Years After an Intervention Program

Abstract

In a follow‐up of experimental mother‐child pairs and their controls, the objec tive was to determine whether differences existed between the groups in ma ternal language and children's receptive language five years after a home‐based intervention program with the experimental group. In order to provide a lan guage “reference standard,” a professional control group was added. Mothers were interviewed and asked to tell stories to their children. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test was administered to the children, with the receptive language gains of the experimental children found to be sustained. The experimental mothers used more specific language when storytelling than the original con trols, manifesting greater frequencies of noun and adjectival usage and refer ences to certain concepts, such as color, space, and number. They also showed greater similarity to the professional mothers than did the original controls. The specificity of the experimental mothers' language appeared to be associated with materials used.