Culture at play: A cross-cultural comparison of mother-child communication during toy play.

ABSTRACT: Maternal scaffolding and four-year-old children's linguistic skills were examined during toy play. Participants were 21 American-English monolingual and 21 Thai monolingual mother-child dyads. Results revealed cross-cultural differences in conversation styles between the two groups. American dyads adopted a high-elaborative style relative to Thai dyads. American and Thai mothers utilized unique sets of elicitation strategies to facilitate different aspects of children's language development, specifically American mothers focused on children's narrative skills whereas Thai mothers emphasized vocabulary learning. The two groups of children showed distinct patterns of conversation, for example American children produced greater evaluative statements whereas Thai children repeated their mother

SUBMITTER: Rochanavibhata S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9173208 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature