The Influence of Family Cognitive Environment on Early Childhood Language Development: a Retrospective Case-control Study in Shanghai

Background The incidence of delay language development in early childhood is high, and the early recognition rate is low, which has a significant negative impact on the early childhood development of other dimensions. The family cognitive environment is a key factor affecting early childhood language development. Objective This study aimed to explore the influence of family cognitive environment on early childhood language development, and provide theoretical basis for promoting early childhood language development from the perspective of community intervention on family cognitive environment. Methods A retrospective case-control study was conducted on 4 307 children who were admitted to a community child healthcare department in Shanghai from 2018 to 2020. The Shanghai Pediatric Development Screening Scale Ⅱ (DenverⅡ) was used for developmental screening, which was conducted at the child's age of 1, 2, and 3 years old. A total of 172 children with delay language development were selected as the case group, and 516 children with normal language development were included in the control group, which was determined by the matching factor of age, with a ratio of the number of children in the case and control groups being 1∶3. The following information of children in both groups were collected, including children's basic birth characteristics, parental demographic characteristics, maternal pregnancy and childbirth characteristics, and family cognitive environment characteristics. The Logistic regression analysis was used to explore the influencing factors of delay early childhood language development. Results A total of 172 children with delayed early language development had an incidence rate of 3.99%, among them ,1-year-old, 2-year-old, and 3-year old children accounted for 33.14% (57 cases), 53.49% (92 cases), and 13.37% (23 cases), respectively. The proportions of male children, children with premature birth, and children with maternal education of high school and below were higher in the case group than those in the control group (P<0.05). The overall family cognitive environment, emotional warmth, social adaptation, linguistic environment, and neglectful environment of the children in the case group were less favorable compared to those in the control group (P<0.05). premature birth, low maternal education, and poor family cognitive environment were risk factors of delay early childhood language development (P<0.05) . Conclusion Interventions for language development before the age of 2 were key to effectively reducing the rate of delay childhood language development. Guiding and optimizing the family caregiving environment, assisting in establishing good parent-child communication and interaction by community child healthcare doctors could be effective strategies for promoting early childhood language development. Community child healthcare doctors should pay special attention to children with young gestational age and low maternal education, and provide more targeted interventions and guidance on parent-child activities and communication.