“You did a great job building that!” Links between parent-child prosocial talk and spatial language

We investigated the extent to which variability in parent and child prosocial talk and negative talk relates to the quantity and diversity of their spatial language production. Participants included 51 four- to seven-year-old children and their parents. Most of the dyads included mothers and were Hispanic and bilingual. Dyads constructed a Lego house for 10 minutes. Sessions were transcribed and coded for instances of parent prosocial talk (praises, reflective statements, and behavior descriptions), child prosocial talk (all positive contributions to the interaction), and parent and child negative talk (criticisms and disapprovals) using the Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System. Transcripts were also coded for quantity and diversity of spatial language including shape terms (e.g., square), dimensional adjectives (e.g., little), orientations (e.g., turn), patterns (e.g., pattern), deictics (e.g., there), locations (e.g., middle), spatial features/properties (e.g., edge), and continuous amounts (e.g., space). Parent prosocial talk, but not negative talk, was significantly associated with the quantity and diversity of parent spatial language production and child prosocial talk, but not negative talk, was significantly associated with the quantity of child spatial language. Exploratory analyses also revealed significant associations between parent and child ‘what’ spatial types and tokens. Findings suggest that variability in parent-child prosocial and spatial talk during collaborative spatial play relates to aspects of their own, and each other’s spatial language production.