MOTHERS BELIEFS AND CHILDRENS LONG-TERM COGNITIVE CHANGE - A DEVELOPMENTAL TASK INTERPRETATION

A longitudinal study was used to explore the following hypotheses conc erning the relation between mothers' beliefs, their use of high-distan cing utterances and children's cognitive development: (1) beliefs mode rate the impact of high-distancing utterances on development, and (2) beliefs reflect mothers' expectations that motivate themselves and the ir children to try to satisfy them. The participants consisted of 34 c hildren and their mothers and teachers. Results for the mother-child d ialogues indicated that the distancing-cognitive performance relations hip was strongest for children whose mothers had the most positive bel iefs. In addition, mothers' beliefs about a 4-year-old child were more strongly related to children's cognitive performance at ages 6 and 10 than to cognitive performance at age 4. Characteristics of both verba l parent-child and verbal teacher-child interactions at age 4 supporte d a developmental task interpretation of these findings.