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Exploring Parents' Utterances during Free Play in Hong Kong: The Associations with Language Complexity and Lexical Diversity

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Title: Exploring Parents' Utterances during Free Play in Hong Kong: The Associations with Language Complexity and Lexical Diversity
Language: English
Authors: Cathy O.Y. Hung (ORCID 0000-0003-4821-2099), Dan Lin, Sze Wan Lo
Source: Early Childhood Education Journal. 2026 54(2):563-576.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 14
Publication Date: 2026
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Parent Child Relationship, Interaction, Interpersonal Communication, Language Usage, Difficulty Level, Play, Child Language
Geographic Terms: Hong Kong
DOI: 10.1007/s10643-024-01848-w
ISSN: 1082-3301
1573-1707
Abstract: This study had the objective of exploring the parent-child interaction pattern during free play. The current research examined parental utterances in terms of parents' linguistic features and the communitive functions of the language used (e.g., communication--eliciting and communication--inhibiting languages) and assessed the language production of their children during free play. As part of a larger scale study, the present research included data of 97 Hong Kong parent-child dyads, where their interaction during free play was documented through audio and video-taped recordings. The transcripts of the recording were analyzed for the lexical diversity and language complexity of parents' and children's utterances, and coded for the parental sensitivity and communicative functions in the parental utterances. Coding data showed that a notable number of Hong Kong parents' utterances were direct commands and close-ended questions; these were 19.6% and 19.3%, respectively, of all utterances in a 15 min of free play. Hierarchical linear regression results showed that asking questions could significantly elicit more children's language output. However, parents' communication-inhibition languages (direct commands and negative talks) have negatively associated with children's language output quality (language complexity and lexical diversity), over the effects of parental language input quality and parental sensitivity. The present research is one of the few studies examining parent-child interaction during free play in Hong Kong. Findings highlight the influence of parental language on children' language output and underscore the importance of promoting playful, child-centered interaction styles.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1507501
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0191573885;5mx01feb.26;2026Feb17.02:11;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0191573885-1">Exploring Parents' Utterances During Free Play in Hong Kong: The Associations with Language Complexity and Lexical Diversity </title> <p>This study had the objective of exploring the parent–child interaction pattern during free play. The current research examined parental utterances in terms of parents' linguistic features and the communitive functions of the language used (e.g., communication–eliciting and communication–inhibiting languages) and assessed the language production of their children during free play. As part of a larger scale study, the present research included data of 97 Hong Kong parent–child dyads, where their interaction during free play was documented through audio and video-taped recordings. The transcripts of the recording were analyzed for the lexical diversity and language complexity of parents' and children's utterances, and coded for the parental sensitivity and communicative functions in the parental utterances. Coding data showed that a notable number of Hong Kong parents' utterances were direct commands and close-ended questions; these were 19.6% and 19.3%, respectively, of all utterances in a 15 min of free play. Hierarchical linear regression results showed that asking questions could significantly elicit more children's language output. However, parents' communication-inhibition languages (direct commands and negative talks) have negatively associated with children's language output quality (language complexity and lexical diversity), over the effects of parental language input quality and parental sensitivity. The present research is one of the few studies examining parent–child interaction during free play in Hong Kong. Findings highlight the influence of parental language on children' language output and underscore the importance of promoting playful, child-centered interaction styles.</p> <p>Keywords: Parental input; Social process; Children's language; Parent–child interactions; Language; Communication and Culture Linguistics Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology</p> <p>Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-024-01848-w.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Play is important for children's development and learning (NAEYC., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref1">47</reflink>]). It is internationally recognized through Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that children have the right to play and to join a wide range of activities. Free play, also known as child–directed or unstructured play, is a type of play when children have full freedom to play in the ways they want and to select their play materials and interest areas (e.g., Ivrendi, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref2">27</reflink>]; Sandseter et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref3">58</reflink>]). Empirical evidence supports the idea that free play can promote children's problem-solving skills, imagination, and ability to cope with anxiety and stress (Lee et al., [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref4">37</reflink>]; Parrott & Cohen, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref5">49</reflink>]). Kwon et al. ([<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref6">33</reflink>]) conducted a study among a sample of 67 parents recruited in the United States to participate in three 5-min dyadic parent–child interaction sessions which included a 5-min structured task, a 5-min free play session, and a 5-min clean-up time. The authors found that parents during free play engaged in a higher level of mutually positive and supportive interactions, exhibiting less negative parenting, and more interactive language than during structured tasks. Over the past 10 years, some early childhood educators in Hong Kong have advocated free play (e.g., Cheng et al., [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref7">7</reflink>]; Cheung et al., [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref8">8</reflink>]; Lee et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref9">35</reflink>]). However, only a few empirical studies have actually examined how play is implemented in Hong Kong's early childhood education or in families, which reflects a relatively limited focus on free play in Hong Kong. The present study aimed to understand the parent–child interaction pattern (i.e., parental sensitivity, language input quality, types of communication) in relation to children's language outputs. In order to have a more comprehensive understanding on the topic, the following sections will review free play in early childhood, the acquisition of language skills through social interactions during play, and the influence of parental utterances on children's language production.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-3">Free Play</hd> <p>Free play is initiated and directed by children, enabling them to take an active role in creating their play experiences (Koralek et al., [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref10">31</reflink>]). In particular, free play is characterized by the absence of predetermined rules or guidelines, making it unstructured and flexible. Children's agency and voice are highly valued and respected in free play. Adults are encouraged to minimize interference over the play and to allow children the space and freedom to lead and explore. Some studies have indicated that freedom of choice is associated with the intrinsic motivation (Patall et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref11">50</reflink>]) and enjoyment of play (Isen & Reeve, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref12">26</reflink>]). Flexibility during free play enables imaginative thinking and promotes creativity. Howard-Jones et al. ([<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref13">23</reflink>]) used an experimental design to compare two groups of children on their creative thinking following free play or a handwriting exercise (structured task). The researchers found that children who participate in free play exhibit greater creative thinking than those highly structured experiences.</p> <p>Although free play underscores child–led participation, adults' supportive interactions may reinforce children's engagement into the play and strengthen the parent–child bond (Ginsburg, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref14">20</reflink>]). Supportive parents are characterized as having considerably high levels of parental sensitivity and autonomy. Findings from experimental research, in which interventions aimed to enhance parental sensitivity were used, support the hypothesis that increased parental sensitivity results in a markedly high level of children's engagement (Landry et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref15">34</reflink>]; Yagmur et al., [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref16">72</reflink>]). Meanwhile, parents' support for autonomy is associated with children's task engagement (e.g. Doctoroff & Arnold, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref17">14</reflink>]). However, parents who display a considerably low degree of autonomy and are minimally supportive of children's play are negatively associated with children's engagement. In particular, experimental research (Deci et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref18">12</reflink>]) has found that the mothers' verbal interactions with children (e.g., use of directive statements, controlling questions, such as questions implying what children should do, criticisms) are negatively correlated with children's interest and intrinsic motivation. Specifically, parents' language use during the parent–child interaction significantly influences the parent–child dyadic reciprocity (Menashe & Atzaba-Poria, [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref19">45</reflink>]). The findings showed that parents who used a greater amount of exploring language (e.g., open–ended questions) demonstrated a higher level of parent–child dyadic reciprocity.</p> <p>Culturally, Asian communities may accept a relatively higher degree of parental control. For example, research has illustrated that parents in Hong Kong tend to exercise more psychological control and offer less autonomy support than parents in Beijing and Los Angeles (Fung et al., [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref20">17</reflink>]). Therefore, this finding leads to a research interest in exploring the interactions between Hong Kong parents and children during free play. The present study aims to provide an understanding of parents' language use in free play among Hong Kong parents and reveal its effects on children's verbal interactions.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-4">Acquiring Language Skills through Social Interactions during Play</hd> <p>Theoretical support for the role of adult–child social interaction in children's language development can be found in social interactionist theories (e.g., Vygotsky, [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref21">69</reflink>]). From the social interactionist perspective, language development is primarily driven by social interactions between children and their caregivers, thereby emphasizing the role of communication. Through interactive experiences and exchanges, children acquire language skills (e.g., vocabulary, syntax, narratives) as they attempt to understand and be understood by people around them (Peterson & McCabe, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref22">51</reflink>]). Moreover, Vygotskian theory proposes an important notion of the zone of proximal development, in which the gap between children's actual developmental and performance levels can be achieved through interaction with adults under the conditions of external prompting and guidance.</p> <p>Free play provides an open-ended context in which children and parents use language to interact naturally, providing the former with ample opportunities to socialize, practice, and develop their language abilities. In a meta-analysis study, intervention in the free play context has shown a larger effect on children's linguistic outcomes than more structured activities, such as shared reading (Heidlage et al., [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref23">21</reflink>]) and other structured tasks (Kwon et al., [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref24">33</reflink>]). As parents describe actions, and respond to their children's initiatives, they model the structure and pragmatic aspects of the language (Røe-Indregård et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref25">55</reflink>]). In turn, children learn to elaborate their feelings (Reschke et al., [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref26">54</reflink>]), describe, and ask questions (Amodia-Bidakowska et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref27">1</reflink>]; Shorer et al., [<reflink idref="bib59" id="ref28">59</reflink>]; Taylor & van der Herik, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref29">64</reflink>]). This parent–child interaction is not just about the transfer of speech words but also about taking turns (Preza & Hadley, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref30">52</reflink>]), understanding intentions, and reading social cues to expand communicative and social competences (Amodia-Bidakowska et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref31">1</reflink>]).</p> <p>However, note that the relationship between parents' verbal interaction and children's language skills has assumed a high level of parental language input quality and quantity. Studies have illustrated that various features of parents' utterances during play, such as the quantity of language input and linguistic quality, could influence young children's early language outcomes (Anderson et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref32">2</reflink>]; Rowe & Snow, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref33">57</reflink>]). According to evidence, the frequencies of oral language exposure and language activities at home (e.g., letter games, rhyming games) significantly predict children's oral language skills (Krijnen et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref34">32</reflink>]). However, the quantity of language input is insufficient to account for individual differences in language development (also see Hoff, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref35">22</reflink>]; Rowe & Snow, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref36">57</reflink>], for a review). Psycholinguistic research has explained that children learn linguistic information (e.g., syntactic structure) from input utterances and hold it in memory, and then assign syntactic structures to the utterances based on current linguistic knowledge, through a process called parsing (Preza & Hadley, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref37">52</reflink>]). The structure heard in utterances would incrementally advance children's knowledge of syntax. Therefore, the quality of linguistic inputs (i.e., diversity of words and complexity of grammar) used by parents in their interactions with young children may be significantly vigorous predictors of children's language outputs (Anderson et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref38">2</reflink>]; Silvey et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref39">60</reflink>]). Diversity of words, or lexical diversity, can be measured by the ratio of different words (types) to total words (tokens) (i.e., type-token ratio in words). Among a sample of 2 – 4 year-old children, d'Apice and von Stumm ([<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref40">11</reflink>]) found that parents' lexical diversity of spoken language significantly contributes to the lexical diversity of children's language. Language complexity can be estimated by using the mean length of utterance (MLU), which divides the total number of words by the total number of utterances (e.g. Brookes et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref41">6</reflink>]). A recent study has indicated that parents whose syntax input has substantially increased complexity positively predicts children's language outcomes (Silvey et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref42">60</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-5">Parental Utterances and Children's Language Production</hd> <p>The communicative function of caregivers' utterances may shape children's conversational opportunities and influence their verbal participation in conversations (Tulviste & Tamm, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref43">68</reflink>]; Wasik & Jacobi-Vessels, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref44">70</reflink>]). Hence, it is associated with children's language outputs. For example, communication-inhibiting language featuring intrusiveness (e.g., use of directive language, brief verbal commands), prohibitions and restrictions, interference, and/or physical guidance and restraint — have been shown to minimize young children's curiosity for exploration, cognitive abilities, and language development (Hubbs-Tait et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref45">24</reflink>]; Nievar et al., [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref46">48</reflink>]). Findings of the longitudinal study of Tulviste and Tamm ([<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref47">68</reflink>]) revealed that the frequent use of directives is negatively associated with children's later language comprehension and production among a sample of children aged 3. The reason is that interactions characterized by a markedly high level of parental control and negativity, such as criticisms, may inhibit children's willingness to express and experiment with language (also see Madigan et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref48">43</reflink>], for a review; Pungello et al., [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref49">53</reflink>]).</p> <p>From a social interactionist perspective, the assumption is that less rich forms of language input, such as directives, do not encourage extended discourse; whereas more extended conversations will typically extend with children's ongoing activities and the use of more varied vocabulary and complex grammar (see Hoff, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref50">22</reflink>], on this point). Communication-eliciting conversations, such as open-ended questions, repetition of children's utterances, and contingent responses, are likely to elicit sophisticated language. Evidence supports the idea that parents with more decontextualized turns in conversations (e.g., references to past events, open-ended questions) have a markedly high level MLU and word tokens (Leech & Rowe, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref51">38</reflink>]). Taylor et al. ([<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref52">65</reflink>]) indicated that children whose mothers adopted a higher level of negative control perform more poorly on linguistic measures. Overall, numerous studies have focused on the relationship between parents' talk and children's language development in literacy activities (Dowdall et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref53">15</reflink>]; Lingwood et al., [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref54">42</reflink>]; Taylor & Leung, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref55">66</reflink>]; Zhou et al., [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref56">74</reflink>]). Only a few studies have examined parental sensitivity, communication-inhibiting language (e.g., directive language, negative talk), communication-eliciting language (e.g., open-ended questions), linguistic quality of parents' utterances, and their children's language production during free play in the Hong Kong context.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-6">The Present Study</hd> <p>This study is exploratory in nature and aims to explore the parent–child interaction pattern during free play (i.e., without pre-determined rules and goals). The study closely examined parental utterances in terms of the linguistic features they employed and the communitive functions of language used (e.g., communication-eliciting and communication-inhibiting languages), and assessed the language production of the children during free play. The three major research questions were as follows: (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref57">1</reflink>) What are the proportions of different types of parental talk used during free play? (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref58">2</reflink>) Which parental language input features (e.g., parental language input quality, parental sensitivity, communicative functions of language) significantly predict children's language complexity and lexical diversity? (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref59">3</reflink>) Which parental language input features significantly predict the amount of children's language outputs?</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-7">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0191573885-8">Procedure</hd> <p>The present study received approval from the ethical review board. The research team adopted a stratified sampling method to sample the kindergartens from each stratum (i.e., one district of 18 districts in Hong Kong represented a stratum). First, five strata were randomly selected. Within each stratum, only kindergartens in the subsidized scheme were included. Second, 10 kindergartens were randomly selected from each stratum. The kindergartens were invited through invitation letters and telephone calls to the school principals. Eventually, a total of 20 local kindergartens (three to five kindergartens from each stratum) agreed to participate. Lastly, all parents of children in K1 classes (equivalent to a three-year-old program) among the 20 local kindergartens were invited via an invitation letter delivered to the schools. The invitation letter detailed all necessary information, including research objectives, procedures, and venue (with a map). Interested parents were invited to register for the research through an online form or email. Following the parents' registration, the research team contacted them to arrange for the assessment to take place at a specialized play space attached to the institute.</p> <p>The free play session was conducted at the specialized play space designed for children from birth through 8 years of age and their families. The play space provides a wide range of indoor and outdoor play facilities. The parent–child dyads were instructed to play like they usually do, and no specific rules or goals were provided for the play. That is, they were free to explore the entire play space. The facilities include theme-based pretend play areas, such as grocery store, construction site, transportation, and play spaces for other activities, such as STEM and nature exploration, performance and arts, musical, and physical activities. After verifying the consent of the participants, the parents and children were asked to wear a smart watch for audio recording to capture the dyadic conversations during the free play for about 20 min. Video recording was also used to document the interaction between parents and children. To examine the dyadic talk in similar settings, only the recordings of the parent–child dyad in the theme-based pretend play were included in the data analysis. Each of the recordings included in the data analysis has a duration of 20 min.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-9">Participants</hd> <p>A total of 97 children (M<subs>age</subs> = 47.12 months, SD = 3.61 months, 53% of them were girls) participated in this study with their parents. Prior to data collection, consent was sought from the parents to participate in the questionnaire and video-tape observation. To gather the demographic information, the parents were asked to complete a survey. For family income, they were asked to report in categories, with each category representing an interval of HKD10,000 (USD1,278); for example, HKD10,000 or below, HKD10,001–20,000 (USD1,278–2,556), HKD20,001–30,000 (USD2,556–3,834). The average reported family income was 6.20 (SD = 3.45), which corresponds to the income range of HKD50,001–60,000 (USD6,394 – 7,672). Among the participating parents, 1% were reported to have attained vocational education, 36.5% reported completing secondary school education, 54.2% held bachelor's degrees, and 8.3% possessed master's degrees. All parents indicated that Cantonese was their mother tongue, and none of the children were diagnosed with or suspected of having special educational needs.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-10">Segmentation of Communication Units (C-units)</hd> <p>All utterances that occurred after the warm-up period (i.e., first 5 min) of the free play session were transcribed and coded. That is, each transcript contained the utterances in 15 min. Utterance segmentations were made using the communication units (C-units) segmentation rules and the linguistic features of Cantonese. The utterance segmentation was carried out following the guidelines developed by Klee et al. ([<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref60">30</reflink>]). A C-unit can comprise a main clause or a main clause in conjunction with its subordinate clauses. Given that our data are in Cantonese, we also considered the linguistic features specific to the language. For example, the final particles in Cantonese often appear at the end of statements and questions, and they typically indicate the boundary of an utterance, unless they are used as discourse markers within sentences. Furthermore, we considered the pause and intonation in determining the utterances' boundaries, as well as a pronounced pause and a shift in tone, such as a lowering of tone in declarative sentences or a rise in pitch in interrogative sentences.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-11">Segmentation of words</hd> <p>After the segmentations, each C-unit was subsequently segmented into words using Python with a PyCantonese library specified for Cantonese linguistics and natural language processing (Lee et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref61">36</reflink>]), which has been used in prior studies (e.g., Li et al., in press; Soo & Monahan, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref62">63</reflink>]). The word segmentation model utilized in PyCantonese is a string-matching algorithm, trained by the HKCanCor corpus and rime-Cantonese data (Lee et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref63">36</reflink>]). Given that the utterance may be composed of potential words that are not present in the training data, there is a possibility of errors when encountering less commonly used words. To address this issue, the results were meticulously reviewed by the researchers, following the Chinese word segmentation guidelines developed by the contemporary Chinese language word segmentation specification for information processing (Institute of Computational Linguistics, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref64">25</reflink>]). The primary rules are as follows. (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref65">1</reflink>) Segmentation unit is the smallest string of characters with independent meaning and grammatical functions. (<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref66">2</reflink>) Phrases are listed in the dictionary. (<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref67">3</reflink>) Names are attributed to various objects and locales. On the bases of these rules, the researchers also extended the training data with additional words appearing in the utterances to facilitate the word segmentation process of subsequent transcripts.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-12">Measures</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0191573885-13">Language Complexity</hd> <p>The parent–child dyad interaction was recorded and then transcribed. The language sample started from the sixth minute of the free play; hence, the transcripts captured the conversation of the parent–child dyad for 15 min during free play. The segmentation rules of the C-units have been described in the previous subsection. The mean length of utterances in words (MLU-W) was obtained from the average number of words in each C-unit. MLU-W was used to indicate the language complexity of the utterance, which has been commonly used in previous studies (e.g. Daneri et al., [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref68">10</reflink>]; Demir-Lira et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref69">13</reflink>]; Smith et al., [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref70">62</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-14">Lexical Diversity</hd> <p>The type-token ratio – words (TTR-W) was obtained from the ratio of word type (number of different words) to word token (total number of words) in each C-unit. TTR-W has been widely used to assess the word diversity of utterances or the lexical diversity (e.g. Demir-Lira et al., [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref71">13</reflink>]; Yang et al., [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref72">73</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-15">Parental Language Use</hd> <p>The parental language used during the 15-min unstructured play was coded using the Dyadic Parent–Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS-IV) (Eyberg et al., [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref73">16</reflink>]). Communication-inhibiting language was coded in the negative talk, direct command, and close-ended question categories. Negative talk refers to the verbal expression of disapproval of the child or the child's attributes, activities, products, or choices (e.g., "Don't go to the sandpit."). Direct command is defined as a declarative statement containing an order, a specific suggestion or direction for a vocalization or behavior, or a mental or internal, unobservable action to be performed by children. This command indicates that children are to perform this behavior (e.g., "Use this bucket to hold water."). Close-ended questions are inquiries that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no," or with a specific piece of information, requiring limited elaboration from the respondents. These questions typically provide a set of predefined options for the respondent to choose from. Communication-eliciting language is represented by the open-ended questions category. Open-ended questions are inquiries that cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" response. Instead, they require additional detailed answers, encouraging the respondents to elaborate, share thoughts, feelings, or information, and engage in profound discussion. Two trained research assistants and a project investigator coded the utterances. For inter-rater reliability, a second coder also coded 20% of the data. The codes were considered reliable when at least 90% of the codes matched and any inconsistencies were resolved through discussion until a consensus is reached.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-16">Parental Sensitivity</hd> <p>Parent–child interactions were coded using the Caregiver Interaction Scale (Arnett, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref74">3</reflink>]). Parental Sensitivity was coded by 10-item rating on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very much true). A sample item is "Talks to children on a level they can understand." The higher the score, the higher the level of sensitivity. Two trained research assistants and a project investigator were responsible for coding the video recordings. To ensure inter-rater reliability, a second coder independently coded 20% of the data. Reliability was confirmed when at least 90% of the codes matched, and any discrepancies were resolved through discussion until a consensus is reached.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-17">Results</hd> <p>Participants in the study consisted of 97 parent–child dyads. In addition to the observation, the parents were invited to respond on a set of questionnaires, including those on their household income and education level. Demographics of the participating families are presented in Table 1.</p> <p>Table 1 Demographics of the families</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>Frequency (%)</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Household income (n = 97)</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Below HKD10,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>1 (1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD10,000–20,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>10 (10.3%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD20,001–30,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>14 (14.4%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD30,001–40,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>12 (12.4%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD40,001–50,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>8 (8.3%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD50,001–60,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>14 (14.4%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD60,001–70,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>11 (11.3%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD70,001–80,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>7 (7.2%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD80,001–90,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>2 (2.1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD90,001–100,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>3 (3.1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD100,001–110,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>5 (5.2%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD110,001–120,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>4 (4.1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD120,001–130,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>2 (2.1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD130,001–140,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>2 (2.1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD140,001–150,000</p></td><td align="left"><p>1 (1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>HKD150,001 or above</p></td><td align="left"><p>1 (1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parents' education level (n = 97)</p></td><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Vocational education</p></td><td align="left"><p>1 (1%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Secondary education</p></td><td align="left"><p>35 (36.5%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Bachelor's degree</p></td><td align="left"><p>52 (54.2%)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Master's degree</p></td><td align="left"><p>8 (8.3%)</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0191573885-18">Descriptive Statistics</hd> <p>The present study coded parental utterances by different features, including communication-inhibiting language (e.g., negative talk, direct commands, and close-ended questions), communication-eliciting language (i.e., open-ended questions), parental sensitivity and linguistic features (i.e., MLU-W and TTR-W), and children's language production (i.e., MLU-W and TTR-W). In relation to the research question 1, Table 2 presents the average number of C-units coded by communication function (subcategories of communication-inhibiting or communication-eliciting language), average rating of parental sensitivity, and average lexical diversity and language complexity of each C-unit produced by parents or children. In particular, the number of C-units coded as the subcategories of communication-inhibiting or communication-eliciting language has been calculated for the proportion to all C-units (M = 192.82, SD = 77.95), representing the proportion of certain type of talk in the 15 min of utterance. For example, for the 15 min of utterance, parents made an average of 19.6% direct commands, and 19.3% close-ended questions.</p> <p>Table 2 Mean and standard derivation of parental language use, parental sensitivity, and parents' and children's language complexity and lexical diversity (n = 97)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>M</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th><th align="left"><p>Proportion of talk to total utterances<sup>1</sup></p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Total utterances of parents</p></td><td align="left"><p>192.82</p></td><td align="left"><p>77.95</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Total utterances of children</p></td><td align="left"><p>53.30</p></td><td align="left"><p>29.82</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="4"><p>Communication-inhibiting language</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Negative talk</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>5.91</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.12</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Direct commands</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>37.15</p></td><td align="left"><p>21.24</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>19.6%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Close-ended questions</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>36.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>18.64</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>19.3%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="4"><p>Communication-eliciting language</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Open-ended questions</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>8.34</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.25</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.4%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parental sensitivity</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.22</p></td><td align="left"><p>.42</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parental language</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Mean length of utterance</italic> – <italic>words</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>4.15</p></td><td align="left"><p>.43</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Type-token ratio</italic> –<italic> words</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>.31</p></td><td align="left"><p>.09</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Children's language</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Mean length of utterance</italic> –<italic> words</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>2.98</p></td><td align="left"><p>.59</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><italic>Type-token ratio</italic> –<italic> words</italic></p></td><td align="left"><p>.40</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12</p></td><td char="." align="char" /></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>1</sups>The percentage represents the proportion of utterances coded as negative talk, direct commands, close-ended questions and open-ended question in all utterances. Among these utterances, there are other utterances coded as neutral talk and other categories that have not been included in the data analysis. So, the percentage does not add up to 100%</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-19">Correlation Analysis</hd> <p>Bivariate correlation (Table 3) showed that parental language complexity is significantly associated with children's language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.27, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01) and lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.22, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05). The lexical diversity of parental language is significantly associated with children's language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.29, <emph>p</emph> < <emph>0.0</emph>1) and lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.26, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01). Parental sensitivity is significantly correlated with parental language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.22, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05), parental lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.22, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05), children's language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.27, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001), and children's lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.21, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05). The quantity of parents' open-ended questions is neither associated with children's language complexity nor their lexical diversity, but it is associated with parental sensitivity (<emph>r</emph> = 0.27, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01). The number of parents' negative talk is negatively associated with parental lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.28, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01), and it is also negatively correlated with children's language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.22, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05) and lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.40, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001). Moreover, the rate of direct commands is negatively correlated with parental lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.24, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05) and negatively associated with children's language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.40, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001) and lexical diversity (r = − 0.35, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001). The number of close-ended questions made by parents is negatively correlated with the parents' lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.34, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001), children's language complexity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.22, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05), and lexical diversity (<emph>r</emph> = − 0.25, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05). The number of close-ended questions also has a weak correlation with parents' direct commands (<emph>r</emph> = 0.27, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01). Household income and parents' education level are insignificantly associated with most variables (Table 3).</p> <p>Table 3 Correlation matrix among the parent − child interaction, parental and children's language complexity, and lexical diversity (n = 97)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>1</p></th><th align="left"><p>2</p></th><th align="left"><p>3</p></th><th align="left"><p>4</p></th><th align="left"><p>5</p></th><th align="left"><p>6</p></th><th align="left"><p>7</p></th><th align="left"><p>8</p></th><th align="left"><p>9</p></th><th align="left"><p>10</p></th><th align="left"><p>11</p></th><th align="left"><p>12</p></th><th align="left"><p>13</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>1. C-units (parents)</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.36<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.20<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.48<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.30<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.36<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.26<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.37<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.28<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.68<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.66<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>2. C-units (children)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.27<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.35<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>.41<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.11</p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>.32<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.09</p></td><td align="left"><p>.26<sup>*</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>3. MLU-W (parents)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.40<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.27<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.04</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.13</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.03</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.11</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4. TTR-W (parents)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.29<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.26<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.28<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.24<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.37<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>5. MLU-W (children)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.45<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.27<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.04</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.40<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.20</p></td><td align="left"><p>.14</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>6. TTR-W (children)</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.21<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.02</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.40<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.35<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.25<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.07</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.05</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>7. Parental sensitivity</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.27<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.27<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.34<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.09</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.01</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.05</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>8. Open-ended questions</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>.34<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>9. Negative talks</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.44<sup>***</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.01</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.01</p></td><td align="left"><p>.04</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>10. Direct commands</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.27<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>.07</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>11. Close-ended questions</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.07</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.06</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>12. Household income</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.53<sup>***</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>13. Education level</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>*</sups> <emph>p</emph> <.05, <sups>**</sups><emph>p</emph> <.01, <sups>***</sups><emph>p</emph> <.001 Regression analysis predicting children's language complexity</p> <p>To address the research question 2, regression analysis has been conducted to examine the features of parental utterances in predicting children's language complexity and lexical diversity. The left part of Table 4 presents the results from the regression predicting children's language complexity. The demographics of the families (i.e., household income, parents' education level) was entered in step 1 and were not significant in predicting variability in children's language complexity. Parental language input variables were entered in step 2 and accounted for 12% of variability of the children's language complexity, <emph>F</emph> = 6.69, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01. Parents provided greater lexical diversity in their language and were associated with greater language complexity of children's talk, <emph>β</emph> = 0.25, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05. Parental sensitivity was entered in step 3, and explained an additional 5% of variance in children's language complexity, <emph>F</emph> = 5.26, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05. Different types of parents talk were entered in step 4 and accounted for 8% of the variability of children's language complexity. Parents using more direct commands were associated with lower language complexity in children's language production, <emph>β</emph> = − 0.31, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01.</p> <p>Table 4 Summary of hierarchical linear regression analyses predicting children's language complexity, lexical diversity, and amount of language production</p> <p> <ephtml> <table rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" colspan="4"><p>Children's language complexity</p></th><th align="left" colspan="4"><p>Children's lexical diversity</p></th><th align="left" colspan="4"><p>Amount of children's language production</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>Step 1</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 2</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 3</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 4</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 1</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 2</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 3</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 4</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 1</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 2</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 3</p></th><th align="left"><p>Step 4</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Demographic controls</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Household income</p></td><td align="left"><p>.17</p></td><td align="left"><p>.15</p></td><td align="left"><p>.14</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>.11</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.07</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.05</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.05</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.04</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parents' education level</p></td><td align="left"><p>.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>.07</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.12</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.13</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.12</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.10</p></td><td align="left"><p>.30<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.31<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.32<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.29<sup>**</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parental language</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parents' language complexity</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.17</p></td><td align="left"><p>.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>.20</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.14</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>.15</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.15</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.18</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.16</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parents' lexical diversity</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.25<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.24<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.24<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p> −.06</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parental sensitivity</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.22<sup>*</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.09</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.16</p></td><td align="left"><p>.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Parental talk</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Direct command</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.31<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.10</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.14</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Negative talk</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.31<sup>**</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.16</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Close-ended questions</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.06</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p> −.18</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.23<sup>*</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Open-ended questions</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.31<sup>**</sup></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Change R<sup>2</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>.04</p></td><td align="left"><p>.12</p></td><td align="left"><p>.05</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08</p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10</p></td><td align="left"><p>.03</p></td><td align="left"><p>.13</p></td><td align="left"><p>.07</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10</p></td><td align="left"><p>.02</p></td><td align="left"><p>.15</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Change F (df)</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.97 (2, 93)</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.69<sup>**</sup> (2, 91)</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.26<sup>*</sup> (1, 90)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.36 (4, 86)</p></td><td align="left"><p>.72 (2, 93)</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.36<sup>**</sup> (2, 91)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.60 (1, 90)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.81<sup>**</sup> (4, 86)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.55<sup>*</sup> (2, 93)</p></td><td align="left"><p>5.31<sup>**</sup> (2, 91)</p></td><td align="left"><p>1.78 (1, 90)</p></td><td align="left"><p>4.92<sup>**</sup> (4, 86)</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>*</sups> <emph>p</emph> <.05. **<emph>p</emph> <.01. ***<emph>p</emph> <.001</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-20">Regression Analysis Predicting Children's Lexical Diversity</hd> <p>The middle part of Table 4 presents the analysis outputs from the regression analysis predicting children's lexical diversity. Household income and parents' education were entered in step 1 and did not significantly predict children's lexical diversity. Thereafter, the measures of the quality of parental language were entered in step 2 and accounted for 10% of the variability of children's lexical diversity, <emph>F</emph> = 5.36, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01. The greater lexical diversity of parents' language significantly predicted higher level of children's lexical diversity, <emph>β</emph> = 0.24, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05. Parental sensitivity was entered in step 3 and did not significantly associate with children's language diversity. Different features of parental talk, including the direct command, negative talk, close-ended questions, and open-ended questions, were entered in step 4 and accounted for 13% of the variability of children's lexical diversity, <emph>F</emph> = 3.81, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01. Parents' negative talk has negatively associated with children's lexical diversity, <emph>β</emph> = − 0.31, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-21">Regression Analysis Predicting Children's Language Production</hd> <p>To address the research question 3, the right part of Table 4 shows the hierarchical linear regression analysis results predicting the amount of children's language production (i.e., number of C-units). Household income and parents' education level were entered in step 1 and accounted for 7% of the variance in the quantity of children's language, <emph>F</emph> = 3.55, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05. The measures of quality of parental language were entered in step 2 and explained additional 10% of the variability of children's language output, <emph>F</emph> = 5.31, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01. In particular, parents' lexical diversity was negatively associated with children's language outputs. Thereafter, the parental sensitivity variable was entered in step 3 and did not significantly predict the amount of children's language production. Parental talk measures were entered in step 4 and significantly account for an additional 15% of the variability of the children's language production, <emph>F</emph> = 4.92, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01. Parents using more close- and open-ended questions were significantly associated with the quantity of children's language outputs, <emph>β</emph> = 0.23, <emph>p</emph> < 0.05 and <emph>β</emph> = 0.31, <emph>p</emph> < 0.01 respectively.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-22">Discussion</hd> <p>This study explores parent − child interactions during free play in the Hong Kong context, focusing on the quality of parents' utterances in terms of language complexity and lexical diversity; and communicative functions of language used in relation to children's language (amount of language production, language complexity, and lexical diversity). Findings highlight the influence of parental language on children' language output and underscore the importance of promoting playful, child-centered interaction styles. Four major findings emerged in this study. First, the study demonstrates that parents' lexical diversity positively predicts the lexical diversity and language complexity of children's language production. Second, the coding analysis revealed that a significant percentage of Hong Kong parents' utterances during free play are classified as communication-inhibiting language (i.e. direct commands and closed-ended questions) accounting for 19.6% and 19.3%, respectively, of all utterances. Third, and relatedly, hierarchical linear regression analysis indicated that parents' direct commands and negative talk negatively predict children's language complexity and lexical diversity over the effects of parental sensitivity and parental language input quality. This finding underscores the importance of adopting positive parenting and supporting the child's agency. Lastly, the findings demonstrated that asking questions, both open-ended questions and close-ended questions, could significantly increase the amount of children's language output. The findings have highlighted the needs to promote parents' understanding of the importance of play and enhance parents' playfulness (Wu et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref75">71</reflink>]) and informed about significant implications for enhancing early language development through positive parenting practices. The following sections further explore the patterns of parent–child interactions during play and their impact on children's language output, with a focus on the effects of parental language quality and the communicative functions of parental language.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-23">Relating Parents' Language Quality and Children's Language Output</hd> <p>This study may be one of the very few studies exploring parental utterances during free play among the sample of parent − child dyads in Hong Kong. As expected, the parents' lexical diversity is significantly associated with children's lexical diversity and language complexity. That is, this finding suggests that when parents use a rich and diverse vocabulary, it can stimulate children's language development, encouraging them to expand their vocabulary and produce more complex sentences. This aligns with past research (e.g., Masur & Gleason, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref76">44</reflink>]; Rowe, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref77">56</reflink>]) showing that diverse parental vocabulary fosters vocabulary acquisition in children. When parents use language with more lexical categories and which are more lexically complicated, children are prompted to listen and understand the meanings of a wider scope of vocabulary, which grows their lexicon, and could expand the breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. This supports a practical implication for parents to have more elaborative conversation with children e.g., (back and forth conversation, decontextualized talk, so that a diverse vocabulary can be used during the interaction, and positively impacts their children's linguistic growth).</p> <p>The finding suggests the significance of communication style in stimulating children's language output. Despite parents' lexical diversity positively predicting children's linguistic output, the findings did not find a positive association between the parents' language input quality and the amount of children's language outputs. Perhaps, this is because the quantity of children's language output is closely linked to their level of engagement and motivation to communicate (Tulviste & Tamm, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref78">68</reflink>]; Wasik & Jacobi-Vessels, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref79">70</reflink>]). Therefore, the ways parents engage with the children (e.g., communication-eliciting or communication-inhibiting language) may have stronger effects in encouraging or discouraging children to speak. In fact, the findings showed that parents' language input quality variable became insignificant after the communicative functions of parents' language have been entered into the regression equations. Moreover, the study demonstrates that the communicative functions of language have unique and significant predictive effects on the amount of children's language output and children's language quality. It has provided indirect evidence supporting the significance of parents' communication style on children's language outputs. For example, there are some prior studies that showed the communicative function aspect of the parents' utterances could influence children's verbal participation in conversations (Tulviste & Tamm, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref80">68</reflink>]; Wasik & Jacobi-Vessels, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref81">70</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-24">Communicative Functions of Parents' Language During Play</hd> <p>Interestingly, the findings showed that Hong Kong parents tend to use a relatively high proportion of direct commands with children. Direct commands are featured with directions for a vocal or behavior to be performed by the children, which is, in another words, expecting compliance and demonstrating parental control or directiveness. The adult-directed play practices may reflect how parents perceive and value children's play (Lin & Li, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref82">41</reflink>]). The recent study has shown that the parents' beliefs in play significantly links to children's household playfulness (e.g., social spontaneity, manifestation of joy) (Fung & Chung, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref83">19</reflink>]). In spite of parents in contemporary society having a higher value on children's play, there is evidence that Hong Kong parents more frequently referred to play as a way to develop children's cognitive ability, acquire content knowledge, and develop intellectual skills (Siu & Keung, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref84">61</reflink>]). This reflects that the understanding of play may have been confined to more structured play activities and academic learning related to play. This finding has further supported that the beliefs and value related to unstructured, child-centered play need to be strengthened among parents.</p> <p>In addition to the parents' beliefs, the parents' playfulness might be relevant to how they engage in play with their children. While more studies have linked parents' practices and behaviors in play to parental supportiveness, beliefs, and value of play (Fung & Chung, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref85">18</reflink>]; Siu & Keung, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref86">61</reflink>]), fewer studies have explored individual factors related to parents (e.g., parents' playfulness, creativity) in shaping the home play environment (Bishop & Chace, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref87">4</reflink>]). For example, recent findings demonstrate that parental playfulness is positively associated with children's playfulness (Wu et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref88">71</reflink>]). This is because more playful parents tend to have a more positive attitude towards playfulness, exert fewer constraints on children's play and provide more support for children in play (Wu et al., [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref89">71</reflink>]). In other words, even though parents value the importance of play, it is possible that parents may not know how to effectively promote a child-centered, playful experience for children. This area of research remains underexplored in literature. Investigation in this line of research could inform the field about the potential strategies to facilitate parents supporting for children's play.</p> <p>It is essential to promote play, especially free play, among families. Note that the findings showed over 40% of communication-inhibiting language used during the play. Parent − child play has also provided a context that strengthens the parent–child relationship (Ginsburg, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref90">20</reflink>]; Teufl & Ahnert, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref91">67</reflink>]). The considerable high level of directiveness observed in play may be in conflict with the principles of free play, which emphasizes child-directedness, freedom, and flexibility. For example, two examples are demonstrated in the appendix. Both parents A and B attempted to interact with their children in a pretend play scenario. However, the parents had the tendency to assign roles for the children (e.g., to be the doctor or cashier) and direct the children's actions (e.g., the child must put on the doctor coat in the doctor-patient pretend play), where the creativity has been highly restricted. When parents attempt to structure play, the play becomes less child-centered and less playful as it appears. Previous research has shown that high levels of parental control can result in negative impacts on children's well-being and self-identity in the long run (e.g. Leung & Shek, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref92">39</reflink>]). In Hong Kong, play in early childhood has often been discussed in relation to learning, such as play-based learning approach in the kindergarten context (Curriculum Development Council, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref93">9</reflink>]). This provides further evident for the need to promote the concept of free play to families and enhance parents' playfulness. Moreover, this finding aligns with a recent study conducted in Hong Kong (Keung & Cheung, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref94">29</reflink>]), indicating the key role of family in supporting play, and parents' involvement in children's play at home. If parents were encouraged to participate more actively in children's play, they also need to understand play (Moon-Seo et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref95">46</reflink>]), and receive supports to enhance the parents' playfulness. The present study has provided empirical evidence to support that.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-25">Relating Communicative Functions of Parents' Language and Children's Language Output Quality</hd> <p>The findings showed that parents who frequently used a higher level of direct commands had children who produced significantly simpler sentences, even when accounting for the effects of parental language input quality and parental sensitivity. That is, direct commands exerted a significant negative impact on the language production of children. Similarly, the finding also showed that parents using more negative talk (e.g., negative evaluative words, negative appraisal of the child) had children with lower lexical diversity in their speech. Note that the direct commands and negative talk used during play prohibited children from using more elaborated sentences and more diverse vocabularies in conversation. A probable explanation is that parents' direct commands and negative talks have diminished children's motivation and willingness to express themselves. Therefore, children's talk remains brief and simple. Another explanation could be that parents who give more direct commands and negative talk, have focused more on the immediate context, which is contextualized talk. Evidence indicates that conversations focused on contextualized talk tend to be less lexical and syntactically complex (Brinchmann et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref96">5</reflink>]) because contextualized talk would provide less opportunities to elicit further conversations between the parents and children. Further analysis should be conducted because it is beyond the scope of the present study to examine the contextualized or decontextualized talk during play and children's language production.</p> <p>The findings also showed that parents use a considerable number of questions; in particular, they tend to use close-ended questions to engage children. The study also finds that asking questions – whether open- or closed-ended – significantly boosts the amount of children's language production. Inconsistent with previous studies that close-ended questions inhibit parent–child interaction, the present study revealed that both types of questions can be effective in engaging children to speak. Close-ended questions, which often require a simple "yes" or "no" response or a brief answer, are commonly used to direct children's attention or confirm understanding. While these questions may not always encourage extended dialogue, they do serve as a means for parents to actively involve children in the interaction and sustain engagement in the activity. Even though open-ended questions generally encourage more detailed language use, close-ended questions also contribute meaningfully to language output by prompting frequent, if brief, verbal responses from children. This aligns with the idea that active participation and engagement in conversation, regardless of the question type, play a vital role in increasing children's language output. This finding suggests that parents can use questioning as an effective tool to keep children verbally engaged, offering opportunities for them to practice language use and build communication skills through consistent interaction.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-26">Limitations and Future Research</hd> <p>The present study acknowledges some limitations. First, this study explored parent − child conversations during play. Although free play is one of the common activities between parents and children, the finding may not be generalized to other activities such as storytelling, in which more structured tasks may elicit different interaction pattern between parents and children. For example, the storybook may provide a context in which parents and children can discuss, make inferences related to the story, and possibly engage in decontextualized talk. Thus, future study needs to replicate the present design in examining the parent − child interaction in various contexts.</p> <p>Second, given the time and resource constraints to code the video clips and transcripts, many other factors were not included in present study. For example, the contextualized or decontextualized talk has recently received relative attention in the literature (e.g., Brinchmann et al., [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref97">5</reflink>]; Jacob et al., [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref98">28</reflink>]). In particular, decontextualized talk has been identified with a relatively high level of linguistic complexity. However, numerous studies have focused on the relationship between decontextualized talk and the utterances of parents. To date, only a few studies have examined whether or not decontextualized talk is able to elicit children's linguistic complexity in talk. Accordingly, further analysis is needed to examine the content of the talk and how it is linked to children's language production.</p> <p>Third, although the influences of parental talk on children's language production were identified in the present study, note that the current findings may have limitations in terms of being generalized to language development. The study suggests that current findings can be viewed as the effects of parental talk on the language production of children, rather than language skill development. Although the lexical and syntactic complexity of children's utterances measured in the present study indirectly reflected children's language skills, note that the level of linguistic complexity in the language production does not necessarily reflect children's engagement level. Therefore, research on children's language development can consider replicating the present study and also include validated measures of children's language skills. Moreover, the current study analyzed the parent − child dyad interaction based on a 15-min observation which may not have comprehensively reflected the interaction and may risk the reliability of the findings. Besides, in the present study a concurrent design was used. The longitudinal effect of the parenting factors has not been captured. Taken together, a longitudinal design with repeated measures of the parent–child dyad interaction could inform how parental talk and parental language input quality predict children's verbal and non-verbal interaction. Nevertheless, this study led to a future direction of research to examine how children's language develops through the social process. This line of investigation may have implications for parenting strategies or interventions.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-27">Conclusion</hd> <p>The present study is one of the few studies focusing on the parent − child dyad interaction during free play. A striking interaction pattern was observed among parents in Hong Kong during play. The parent − child dyad interaction included a large proportion of communication-inhibiting languages, such as direct commands, close-ended questions, and some negative talks (accounting for over 40% of all utterances) during their play. This direct command and negative talk of parents limited children's language complexity and lexical diversity. The findings show that asking questions, both close-ended and open-ended questions, benefits the language production for young children. Taken together, the present study provides evidence about the influence of parental language on children's language output and underscores the importance of promoting playful, child-centered interaction styles. This study has the potential to lead to significant implications for enhancing early language development through positive parenting practices.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-28">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Faculty Development Scheme, Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China to Dr Cathy OY Hung (Project No. UGC/FDS41 (S17)/H01/22)</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-29">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0191573885-30">Conflict of interests</hd> <p>The authors whose names are listed immediately below certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest, or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-31">Supplementary Information</hd> <p>Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.</p> <p>Graph: Supplementary file1 (DOCX 18 kb)</p> <hd id="AN0191573885-32">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0191573885-33"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref27" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Amodia-Bidakowska A, Laverty C, Ramchandani PG. 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  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Exploring Parents' Utterances during Free Play in Hong Kong: The Associations with Language Complexity and Lexical Diversity
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  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Cathy+O%2EY%2E+Hung%22">Cathy O.Y. Hung</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4821-2099">0000-0003-4821-2099</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Dan+Lin%22">Dan Lin</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Sze+Wan+Lo%22">Sze Wan Lo</searchLink>
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education+Journal%22"><i>Early Childhood Education Journal</i></searchLink>. 2026 54(2):563-576.
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  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
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  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 14
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Parent+Child+Relationship%22">Parent Child Relationship</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interaction%22">Interaction</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Interpersonal+Communication%22">Interpersonal Communication</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Language+Usage%22">Language Usage</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Difficulty+Level%22">Difficulty Level</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Play%22">Play</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Child+Language%22">Child Language</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hong+Kong%22">Hong Kong</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s10643-024-01848-w
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 1082-3301<br />1573-1707
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: This study had the objective of exploring the parent-child interaction pattern during free play. The current research examined parental utterances in terms of parents' linguistic features and the communitive functions of the language used (e.g., communication--eliciting and communication--inhibiting languages) and assessed the language production of their children during free play. As part of a larger scale study, the present research included data of 97 Hong Kong parent-child dyads, where their interaction during free play was documented through audio and video-taped recordings. The transcripts of the recording were analyzed for the lexical diversity and language complexity of parents' and children's utterances, and coded for the parental sensitivity and communicative functions in the parental utterances. Coding data showed that a notable number of Hong Kong parents' utterances were direct commands and close-ended questions; these were 19.6% and 19.3%, respectively, of all utterances in a 15 min of free play. Hierarchical linear regression results showed that asking questions could significantly elicit more children's language output. However, parents' communication-inhibition languages (direct commands and negative talks) have negatively associated with children's language output quality (language complexity and lexical diversity), over the effects of parental language input quality and parental sensitivity. The present research is one of the few studies examining parent-child interaction during free play in Hong Kong. Findings highlight the influence of parental language on children' language output and underscore the importance of promoting playful, child-centered interaction styles.
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  Label: Entry Date
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  Data: 2026
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  Data: EJ1507501
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RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s10643-024-01848-w
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 14
        StartPage: 563
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Parent Child Relationship
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Interaction
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Interpersonal Communication
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Language Usage
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Difficulty Level
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Play
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Child Language
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Hong Kong
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Exploring Parents' Utterances during Free Play in Hong Kong: The Associations with Language Complexity and Lexical Diversity
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Cathy O.Y. Hung
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Dan Lin
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Sze Wan Lo
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2026
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 1082-3301
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1573-1707
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 54
            – Type: issue
              Value: 2
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Early Childhood Education Journal
              Type: main
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