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Updated: May 28, 2026

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
06:07

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Published on: May 15, 2019

Maternal sensitivity and language in early childhood: a test of the transactional model

Patricia Leigh1, M Angela Nievar, Laura Nathans

  • 1Speech, Language, and Hearing Department, Leader Center, Human Services Building, Edinboro University, Edinboro, PA 16444, USA. pleigh@edinboro.edu

Perceptual and Motor Skills
|October 13, 2011
PubMed

This study examined the relation between mothers' sensitive responsiveness to their children and the children's expressive language skills during early childhood. Reciprocal effects were tested with dyads of mothers and their children participating in the National Institute of Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Sensitive maternal interactions positively affected children's later expressive language in the second and third years of life. Although maternal sensitivity predicted later language skills in children, children's language did not affect later maternal sensitivity as indicated in a structural equation model. These results do not support the 1975 transactional model of child development of Sameroff and Chandler. A consistent pattern of sensitivity throughout infancy and early childhood indicates the importance of fostering maternal sensitivity in infancy for prevention or remediation of expressive language problems in young children.

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