Relation among Mother's Interaction Behavior, Mother's Language Input and Children's MLU: A Comparison between Multicultural- and Korean-Families

Abstract

Maternal interaction behavior, language input and children's language of 34 multicultural families were compared with those of ordinary families. MLU's of multicultural mothers and their children were shorter than those of ordinary Korean mothers and children. Positive maternal interaction behaviors of multicultural mothers were significantly lower than those of ordinary mothers. Correlational analyses revealed that there were positive correlations among maternal interaction behaviors, mother's MLU and children' MLU in multicultural families. However, there were no such correlations in ordinary families. Findings suggest language education and support for multicultural mothers be an effective policy for their children's language development.