SYNOPSIS
Aim. To analyze whether or not maternal sensitivity in non-distress contexts and nurturance to infants’ distress mediate the affiliation between cumulative sociodemographic chance and children’s rising language skill. Style and design. Contributors have been a group sample of moms and their infants (n = 99). All through an first household check out, moms and infants 6 to 12 months outdated were videorecorded through no cost-engage in and infant distress-eliciting jobs, and mothers presented demographic data. Maternal behaviors ended up coded for sensitivity and nurturance to distress. 6 months right after the household check out, mothers documented children’s language ability. Cumulative risk was a latent variable with dichotomous indicators of high college schooling or much less, money-to-requires ratio <1, maternal age ≤21, single parenthood, and minority status. Child language, a latent variable with five percentile scores as indicators, was regressed onto sensitivity, nurturance, and the latent risk variable. The indirect effects between sociodemographic risk and child language outcome via sensitivity and nurturance to distress were also estimated. Results. Risk was negatively associated with maternal sensitivity and nurturance to distress in infancy. Sensitivity, but not nurturance to distress, mediated the association between risk and child language ability between 12 and 22 months of age. Conclusions. Maternal sensitivity in non-distress contexts may represent an important target of intervention programs aimed at enhancing early language development among high-risk families.