Adoptive parent linguistics: Links to adoptees' relationships with their birth mother

The study addressed whether specific linguistic variables used by adoptive parents were associated with ratings of the adoptee's relationship with their birth mothers.

Parents transmit their beliefs and values to children through verbal and nonverbal communication. The ways in which adoptive parents discuss their child's adoption and birth family can influence the child's adoptive identity development and satisfaction with their adoption arrangements.

Participants included mothers, fathers, and adolescents (M age = 15.7 years) in 177 adoptive families of children who were adopted domestically as infants by same-race parents. The Linguistic Analysis and Word Count 2015 (LIWC2015) program was used to code adoptive parents' interviews regarding their thoughts and feelings about adoption and their child's birth family. Adolescents' views of birth mothers were coded from their interviews.

There were significant differences in linguistic patterns when adoptive parents discussed adoption generally compared to when they discussed their child's birth family. Specific linguistic variables used by adoptive mothers and fathers were significantly associated with adopted adolescents' perceptions and feelings towards their birth mothers.