MOTHERS AND FATHERS SCAFFOLDING OF THEIR 2-YEAR-OLDS DURING PROBLEM-SOLVING AND LITERACY INTERACTIONS

Building upon Wood & Middleton's (1975) concept of parental scaffoldin g, the influence of parent-child interactions on children's competence within several tasks was investigated. Thirty-two 2-year-old children visited our lab twice, once with their mothers and once with their fa thers. During each session dyads participated in problem-solving and l iteracy tasks, followed by independent child performance tasks. Althou gh subtle differences were found between mothers' and fathers' conting ent behaviours displayed during the interactions, at a global level, p arents were equally effective in their ability to scaffold their child ren's emerging skills. Specifically, parental scaffolding behaviours w ere associated with children's success measured both during the intera ction and independently (i.e. following the interactions). These resul ts have implications for the interpretation of research comparing moth ers and fathers, and lend support to the claim that scaffolding can be an effective instructional strategy.