It is well documented that the language skills of preschool children differ substantially and that these differences are highly predictive of their later academic success and achievements. Especially in the early phases of children’s lives, the importance of different structural and process characteristics of the home learning environment has been emphasized and research results have documented that process characteristics such as the quality of parental interaction behavior and the frequency of joint activities vary according to the socio-economic status of the (...) family. Further, both structural and process characteristics are associated with children’s language development. As most of the studies focus on single indicators or didn’t take the dynamics of parenting behavior across age into account, the present paper aims to investigate the associations of different characteristics of the home learning environment as well as their potentially changing impact on the language skills of 2-year-old children. Using data of 2.272 families of the infant cohort study of the German National Educational Panel Study, longitudinally assessed process characteristics and structural characteristics were considered. Language skills of the children at the age of two were measured by a standardized and validated parent report instrument. Results showed that all three process characteristics of the home learning environment are associated with the family’s SES; across three assessment waves nearly all process characteristics predicted children’s vocabulary and grammar skills with some process-specific changes across waves; despite separate direct effects of nearly all HLE-process characteristics in each wave, the amount of explained variance in a joint model including the HLE facets from each wave is hardly higher than in the separate models; and socioeconomic background predicted both language facets of the children in each model even when controlling for the assessed process characteristics of the home learning environment. (shrink)

This study aimed to advance our understanding of 5-year-olds’ behavioral difficulties by modeling and testing both mediational protective and risk pathways simultaneously. Drawing on two national samples from different Western European countries—the United Kingdom and Germany, the proposed model considered observed sensitive parental interactive behaviors and tested child vocabulary as protective pathways connecting parental education with children’s behavioral outcomes; the risk pathways focused on negative parental disciplinary practices linking parental education, parental distress, and children’s difficult temperament to children’s behavioral difficulties. (...) Further, the tested model controlled for families’ income as well as children’s sex and formal child care attendance. Children with comparatively higher educated parents experienced more sensitive interactive behavior, had more advanced vocabulary, and exhibited fewer behavioral difficulties. Children with a comparatively higher level of difficult temperament or with parents who suffered from distress tended to experience more negative disciplinary behavior and exhibited more behavioral difficulties. Additionally, children’s vocabulary skills served as a mechanism mediating the association between parental education and children’s behavioral difficulties. Overall, we found similar patterns of results across the United Kingdom and Germany with both protective and risk pathways contributing simultaneously to children’s behavioral development. The findings suggest that promoting parents’ sensitive interactive behaviors, favorable disciplinary practices, and child’s vocabulary skills have potential for preventing early behavioral difficulties. (shrink)

Language development is not completed when children enter primary school. As the comprehension of connectives (such as although, despite) is important for understanding and producing academic texts and, thus, relevant for school success, we investigated its development and influential factors across primary school age on the basis of a newly developed and validated test instrument. Drawing on a German sample of N = 627 children (57.6 % language minority learners) in Grades 2 to 4, results of growth curve models showed (...) students’ initial level of the comprehension of connectives to be negatively related to its growth rate. Additional analyses revealed this association to be due mainly to parental socioeconomic status (SES) rather than children’s language background. Particularly, parental SES and children’s receptive grammar impacted initial level as well as growth rate of connective comprehension. Our results indicate the need for early and continuous sensitization of children for the register of academic language especially in the group of children from low socioeconomic background. (shrink)