Hoe verandert de verbale regulerende reactie van ouders op het gedrag van hun kind tijdens de transitie van kruipen naar lopen?

Abstract

When children learn to walk they have the possibility to explore their surroundings in a different way. They will cover more distance and the distance between them and their parents will increase. Whereas the child is further away, parents might rely more on distal, verbal communication to regulate their child’s behaviour. However, evidence about possible changes of verbal regulatory responses during the transition from crawling to walking are scarce. The aim of the current study was to examine the change of the verbal regulatory response from parents when their children made the transition from crawling to walking. The hypotheses were that (1) when children were able to walk the parents would use more responses that discouraged or prevented the child’s behaviour and (2) that they would use less responses that encouraged or elicited the child’s behaviour. For this purpose a sample of 16 children around the age of 1 year was used. The verbal regulatory response was measured during a natural home-based play interaction between the parent and child. These interactions were videotaped and analysed. Furthermore parental reports were used to measure walking status. Determining walking status created a group of children who were able to walk independently and a group who were only able to crawl. The hypotheses were tested by mixed repeated measures ANOVAs. The children’s age was taken as a covariate in the analyses. Results showed no significant increase in parental verbal discouragement and no significant decrease in parental verbal encouragement. In conclusion no relation was found between the transition from crawling to walking to a change in the parents' verbal regulatory response to their child's behaviour. However, due to the small sample size more research is needed to examine this relationship.