Internal state language factor structure and development in toddlerhood: Insights from WordBank
Tyler C McFayden1, Madeleine Bruce2
1University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
None:
Internal state language (ISL) research contains knowledge gaps, including dimensionality and predictors of growth, addressed here in a two-aim study. Parent-reported expressive language from N = 6,373 monolingual, English-speaking toddlers (Mage = 23.5mos, 46% male, 57% white) was collected using cross-sectional and longitudinal data in WordBank. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses suggested a best-fitting one-factor model of ISL. The single-factor model of ISL was then submitted to hierarchical linear modeling to evaluate predictors of ISL development. Age 2 ISL production was predicted by child sex, wherein females outperform males, and maternal education, wherein higher education contributes to higher ISL. Only maternal education emerged as a significant predictor of ISL growth. These results provide support to theory suggesting a unitary construct of ISL, as opposed to considering ISL as categorical, and further illustrate linear growth through the second postnatal year that varies as a function of child sex and maternal education.
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