How parental responsiveness shapes preschoolers’ emotional understanding through expressive language and executive function
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12724811 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hsiu‐Fei Wang (0009-0004-9576-3971, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan), Ishien Li (0000-0002-4662-0614, National Taichung University of Education, Taiwan, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 111-124 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-18 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Early Childhood Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1476-718X • E-ISSN: 1741-2927 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1476718x251363721 |
| OpenAlex | W4414333314 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
Using data from a large national sample of preschool-age children in Taiwan, this study takes a unique approach by examining the links of parental responsiveness to multiple domains of child outcomes. Specifically, this study innovatively inspects the potential mediating roles of children’s expressive language and executive functioning in the relationship between positive parental responsiveness and children’s emotional understanding. We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Child Development and Care in Taiwan to examine a sample of 1743 4-year-old children with a balanced gender distribution. The structural equation modeling analysis findings reveal that positive parental responsiveness has a statistically significant direct association with children’s emotional understanding and significant mediation associations through expressive language and executive functioning, even after controlling for family socioeconomic status (SES). These findings highlight the crucial role of parental responsiveness, as well as the significance of children’s expressive language and executive functioning, in promoting emotional understanding in early childhood. Therefore, early childhood prevention and intervention programs should consider targeting these skills as a strategic approach to enhancing emotional competence in young children
Cognition · Competence (human resources · Early childhood · Executive functions · Expressive Suppression · Longitudinal study · Mediation · Socioeconomic status · Structural equation modeling · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Child and Animal Learning Development · Early Childhood Education and Development
School Readiness and Self-Regulation
Socioeconomic status and executive function
Reporting practices in confirmatory factor analysis
Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis
Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error
A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects.
Growth in emotion understanding across early childhood
The Analysis of Covariance Structures
On the fit of models to covariances and methodology to the Bulletin
Significance tests and goodness of fit in the analysis of covariance structures
Alternative Ways of Assessing Model Fit
Bootstrapping Goodness-of-Fit Measures in Structural Equation Models
Direct and Indirect Effects in Linear Structural Equation Models
| Highly cited | No |
|---|