Intimate partner violence, maternal depression, and pathways to children's language ability at 10 years

Intimate partner violence (IPV) between parents is associated with poorer child language development. This study aimed to examine pathways from IPV and maternal depressive symptoms in children's 1st year to language skills at 10 years. Pathways were examined via IPV, maternal depressive symptoms, and maternal involvement in home learning activities (e.g., reading, storytelling) at age 4. A secondary aim was to examine whether these pathways differed by child gender. Data were drawn from 1,507 mothers and their firstborn children participating in a community-based prospective longitudinal study. At child age 1 and 4 years, mothers reported IPV using the Composite Abuse Scale (CAS) and completed a depression scale. At child age 10 years, mothers completed the Children's Communication Checklist (2nd edition) Short Form and 4 pragmatic subscales, and children completed a receptive vocabulary test. Results provided some evidence that maternal depressive symptoms at 4 years postpartum may be an important mechanism by which exposure to IPV and maternal depressive symptoms in the child's 1st year is associated with poorer language at age 10. These pathways remained evident after accounting for social disadvantage, number of siblings, and concurrent IPV exposure at 10 years. There was little evidence that the pathways were mediated by maternal involvement or differed by gender. Implications for speech pathology, health, and education professionals concern identifying and supporting the language needs of children in family contexts where IPV is present. Intervention strategies for families affected by IPV such as supporting maternal mental health and the mother-child relationship could be extended to support child language development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).