Maternal Verbal Functioning, Intimate Partner Violence, and Social-Emotional Well-Being in Elementary-Aged Children

Background and Purpose: There is a dearth of information about how children of mothers with lower verbal functioning (LVF) fare over time. Mothers with LVF are more likely than those without LVF to experience conditions, such as poverty, that are related to poor social-emotional well-being in their children. Prior research has demonstrated that children whose mothers with LVF experience lower levels of social-emotional well-being compared to their peers at age 5. This study examined the same children’s social-emotional well-being at age 9 to identify how social-emotional well-being may change over time.

Methods: Data for this study comes from multiple waves of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to identify community, family, and parental factors predictive of children’s social-emotional well-being at age 9 while controlling for these same indicators when children were 5 years old. Nine outcomes were assessed and measured with the Child Behavior Checklist and the Adaptive Social Behavior Inventory. Each measure assessed mothers’, who were all primary caregivers, perceptions of an index child. Specific outcomes included positive behavior, anxiety/depression, attention problems, aggression, social problems, delinquency, withdrawn behavior, somatic problems, and thought problems.

Results: The overall model was significant (l=0.50; p<0.01) with R² ranging from 0.08 (somatic problems) to 0.22 (aggression). Maternal LVF was significantly predictive of positive behavior (p=0.04), attention problems (p=0.01), aggression (p<0.01), social problems (p=0.03), and withdrawn behavior (p=0.04). IPV significantly predicted all outcomes except positive behavior at the p£0.01-level; the interaction between maternal LVF and IPV was significantly predictive of positive behavior (p=0.02), attention problems (p=0.02), aggression (p<0.01), social problems (p=0.04), and withdrawn behavior (p=0.05). Other significant predictors across each of the outcomes were poverty (for 4 of 9 outcomes), maternal race/ethnicity (for 5 of 9 outcomes), aggravation in parenting (for 6 of 9 outcomes), maternal depression (for 5 of 9 outcomes), previous social-emotional functioning (all nine outcomes), and the child’s own level of verbal functioning (for 8 of 9 outcomes).

Conclusions and Implications: Previous research found that LVF in mothers was predictive of lower social-emotional well-being indicators across multiple domains; the current study deepens the understanding of this topic. In previous research, neighborhood factors were predictive of several outcomes; however, that was not the case in this study. Family and child-level factors were most predictive of social-emotional well-being for all outcomes. The relationship between maternal LVF and children’s social-emotional well-being appears to be enduring as are other predictors identified in previous research. Children whose mothers experience both IPV and LVF are at increased risk for worse social-emotional well-being as well as those who have a history of lower levels of social-emotional well-being, and those who have lower levels of verbal functioning themselves. Implications for policy and practice indicate the importance of an early and holistic understanding of the context in which children live, particularly when children are struggling with social-emotional functioning. Early and ongoing support to children and families over time may help improve children’s social-emotional well-being. Significant predictors could help identify specific areas for intervention.