Characteristics of mastery motivation and its relationship with parenting stress in toddlers with language delay

Mastery motivation is a multifaceted, psychological force that stimulates a child to master skills or tasks and is positively associated with language-related competences. Children with developmental delay might have lower levels of motivation, and their parents might face escalated parenting stress as well. The aims of this study were to identify the characteristics of mastery motivation in toddlers with language delay by intergroup and intragroup comparison, and to investigate the associations between specific components of parenting stress and toddler's mastery motivation. Eighty Chinese-speaking Taiwanese toddlers aged 19 to 42 months and their parents (fifty toddlers with language delay and thirty toddlers with typical development) participated in the study. The language delay group was selected based on maternal reports of vocabulary production with the Mandarin-Chinese Communicative Development Inventory and direct assessment with an individualized developmental test or intelligence test. The Revised Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire (DMQ 18) with Preschool version, and the Parenting Stress Index Short Form were used to measure three domains of child mastery motivation and parents' components of parenting stress, respectively. Toddlers with language delay were rated as having lower gross motor and social mastery motivation than their peers with typical development; however, they showed the strength/weakness intragroup characteristics of higher gross motor motivation and lower social motivation with other children. Parental stress in the language delay group was significantly negatively correlated with mastery motivation, and the component of Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction was negatively associated with toddlers' Total Mastery Motivation, social motivation, and two indicators of expressive aspect after controlling for toddlers' age, cognitive ability, and family social-economic status. In conclusion, it is necessary for early interventionists to observe parenting stress and mastery motivation during the process of early intervention.