Effects of Maternal Communication Competence on Preschoolers’ Executive Function during Reminiscing

This study aimed to explore how maternal communication competence relates to executive function (EF) in young children. In order to investigate the features of maternal talk during spontaneous conversational contexts, the following aspects of maternal talk were observed while mothers and their preschool children (91 dyads) were reminiscing: mental-state talk (cognition, emotion, and desire), semantic connection (maternal talk semantically connected to the child’s previous talk), and elaboration (verbal propositions adding new information and encouraging the child’s participation). Then, the children completed age-appropriate EF tasks. Results showed that maternal emotion talk was significantly related to a child’s EF. This relationship was stronger when the maternal talk was semantically connected to the child’s previous talk. In addition, it was suggested that children’s language ability could benefit from maternal elaborative statements, which may help boost child EF skills. These results contribute to the development of training courses designed to improve maternal communication competencies, which may ultimately help enhance cognitive skills in young children.