Laura I. Fuentes-López University of Puerto Rico Dr. Carol Scheffner Hammer Department of Communications Disorders

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1 Laura I. Fuentes-López University of Puerto Rico Dr. Carol Scheffner Hammer Department of Communications Disorders Presence of maternal depressive symptoms: The relationship between mother s emotional status and their preschooler s literacy abilities. Abstract: A high percentage of the Hispanic population living in the United Sates is at risk for low literacy outcomes. Most researchers have agreed that the home environment plays a large role in shaping children s literacy. Maternal depression has been identified as one potential risk factor for low literacy outcomes. The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine if maternal depression was related to the literacy outcomes of bilingual Head Start children. The participants of the study were 38 Puerto Rican Head Start children and their mothers. The mothers depressive symptoms were screened using the CES-D. Between 50%-60% of the mothers of sequential learners showed depressive symptoms at a given time and between 35%- 53% of the mothers of simultaneous learners showed depressive symptoms during one of the home visits. Fifteen percent of the mothers of sequential learners and five percent of the mothers of simultaneous learners showed chronic depressive symptoms. No significant relationship was found between the mothers depressive symptoms and children s literacy outcomes. Introduction and Literature Review: The Hispanic population in the United States is increasing each year. This fact contributes to the cultural diversity of this nation. At the same time such enrichment poses great challenges in terms of developing adequate English communication skills for people whose native language is not English. Thus, as the Hispanic population becomes a significant part of the United Sates, researchers are attending to the needs of this population, including risks factors for children s literacy development matters. Researchers are moving toward finding ways to assess the different needs of this population. The Hispanic population in the United Sates has been identified as being at risk for lower literacy outcomes. For example, in 1998 Snow et al. argued that Spanish-speaking children are twice as likely to read below age-level when compared with non-hispanic whites. In 1999, The Federal Interagency Forum on child and family statistics reported that Spanish-speaking children are more likely to drop out of school than non-hispanic whites and blacks. Also, it has been argued that the Hispanic population has lower literacy levels as adults than other cultural groups (President s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, 1996). The concept of literacy is not easily defined. There is no mutually agreed upon definition. Different researches may have different definitions abut what literacy means. For McLane & McNamee, literacy means more much than knowing the letters of the alphabet or its use for reading and writing. For them, literacy also involves attitudes, assumption and expectations 1

2 about writing and reading and about the place and value of these activities in one s life (McLane & McNamee, 1990, p.2). As one might notice, literacy is a multifaceted skill. The definition of literacy changes over time, as same as the expectations and necessities of societies does. In this same way, literacy is not the same on every person. For purpose of this study, literacy is defined as a complex skill that involves development in several abilities such as: print awareness, knowledge of the alphabetic principle, phonemic awareness, the ability to identify letters and knowledge of sound letter correspondence (Hammer & Miccio, 1999, p.39). The capacity to read is highly valued and very important for social and economic progress (Snow et al, 1998). The aforementioned findings about Hispanic population literacy outcomes generate great concern. This concern increases when one considers that deficiencies in literacy have enormous consequences that not only affects children s competence in school, but also their overall well being and their abilities to compete in the world (Hammer & Miccio, 1999, p.38). As Snow et al (1998) have discussed, it may be hypothesized that the lack of full potential of Spanish speaking children is due to limited knowledge of English. However, a large percentage of Spanish speaking children perform below age expectations when taught and tested in Spanish. As a result of this finding it is clear that additional external factors might negatively impact children s development. Researchers have identified other potential risk factors. Most researchers agree that the home environment significantly influences and shapes children s literacy. Literacy development starts near the beginning of the children s life with their inclusion into society. Their immediate caregivers become models for the child. Literacy development is a social process due to the integration of the individual into social relationships from birth. Literacy is influenced by children s relationship with their family members, caretakers, friends and teachers (McLane & McNamee, 1990). Spanish speaking children may be at risk because of environmental factors associated with poverty and differences or contradictions between their literacy experiences in the home and their literacy experience at school (Hammer and Miccio, 1999). This circumstance relates directly to Puerto Rican children, as forty-five percent of all Puerto Rican children are living in poverty, and fifty-two percent live in families that receive Medicaid and food stamps (Hofferth, 1999). In addition, statistics demonstrate that over 55% of Spanish speaking children come from families with an annual income of 20,000 or less (Mc Arthur, 1993). Other factors associated with poverty that are thought to be related to poor literacy development are low parental education, single parenthood, parental depression, and reduced social support (Hammer & Miccio, 1999). There are few investigations that have examined risk and protective factors for the Puerto Rican population. There is also little research about the literacy development of bilingual children in the United States. Past research has focused on examining children's language development when they are bilingual; there is much more to learn about the topic. 2

3 To understand how literacy develops it is important or necessary to explore and analyze the environment in which a child is immersed to. Consideration must be given to human relationships and aspects of the environment that provide opportunities, materials and resources to enhance children s abilities (McLane & McNamee, 1990). For example, maternal depression and poverty within a child s environment can affect the quality and quantity of human relationships and resources. As previously mentioned, the environmental risk factor studied in this investigation is maternal depression. Maternal depression can be influenced by other environmental factors such as poverty, low educational levels and reduced social support. For example, Hispanic families may be away from their extended families. If mothers do not speak English, it is difficult for them to make new friends. However, maternal depression seems to be related to living in poverty. It has been argued that mothers who live in poverty are at risk for depression as compared to women who are more financially stable, regardless of their marital status (Belle, 1990). Maternal depression has been associated with poorer quality of parenting and child outcomes. Maternal depression has been linked specifically with lower quality of mother-child interaction, more negative maternal perception of progeny and lower cognitive abilities in infancy (Hammer & Miccio, 1999). Chronic maternal depression has also been associated with lower cognitivelinguistic functioning and school readiness at age three (Hammer & Miccio, 1999, p.41). Recently, the effect of maternal depression on children s development has received more attention. It is known that mental disorders in parents, such as depression, can influence a child s future development. Several researchers have observed some negative and low quality outcomes in these relationships. For example, Cox et. al (1987) found that children of depressed mothers were more often distressed, had delays in expressive language development and showed more behavioral problems and emotional disturbance in comparison with children from nondepressed mothers. Investigators such as Lyons-Ruths et al. (1986) have identified maternal depression as a potential risk factor for childhood psychopathology. Maternal depression may also affect the interactions mothers have with their children. Some studies have concluded that depressed mothers and their infants spent more time in negative states and less time in positive ones (Leadbeater & Bishop, 1996). Also, other studies conducted with an underprivileged population showed unhealthy interactive behaviors such as hostility, intrusive behavior, withdrawal or disconnection between depressed mothers and their infants (Murray, Fiori-Cowley and Hooper, 1996). Most of the depressed mothers spent less time establishing eye, physical and oral contact with their children. In addition, they showed more negative faces than positive to their children while interacting (Field, 1995). Another characteristic of depressed mothers is that they typically have a negative view of their offspring and themselves (Teti, O Connell & Reiner, 1996). This may be related to the fact that depressed individuals, in general, view the world less positively (Field, 1995). Although many researchers have focused on the social and emotional outcomes of children like the ones discussed previously, the effects of maternal depression have also been associated with 3

4 lower cognitive abilities in infants. Hale (1997) argued that children of depressed mothers have shown attention deficiencies, reading problems and failures in social problem solving. In this study, depression has been identified as a possible environmental risk factor. The purpose of this preliminary study was to determine if maternal depression is related to the literacy outcomes of bilingual Head Start children. The main objectives were: (a) to determine the percentage of mothers who showed signs of depressive symptomatology at various points in time during their children s preschool years, (b) to determine percentage of mothers who demonstrated chronic depression symptomatology and (c) to investigate the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and Head Start children s early literacy abilities. The identification of the factors will allow educators to better tailor their interventions to the needs of the families that they serve. This research is part of a larger project that looks for risk and protective factors for language and literacy outcomes. Method: Participants: The participants of this study were 38 Puerto Rican Head Start children and their mothers. In order to participate the children must had some specific characteristics such as: (a) have no parental or teacher concerns about their development, (b) pass a hearing screening administered by a Head Start nurse, (c) have no history of neurological, developmental or psychological deficits as determined by teacher and parent report and (d) pass the Denver Developmental Screening Test-II (DDST-II; Frankenburg & Dodds, 1992) that was administered by the children s classroom teacher. The DDST-II has been selected because of its high test-retest reliability (.90) and because it provides information on the performance of children form minority groups. In addition, the children participating in the study were of Puerto Rican descent and lived in a family that financially qualified for Head Start services. Children were divided in two groups depending upon the age at which they began to learn English. One group was composed by sequential learners (SE), which means that these children were exposed to Spanish from birth and later were exposed to English after the age of 3. The second group consisted of simultaneous learners (SI), which meant that the children were exposed to both languages (Spanish and English) since birth (MacLaughlin, 1984). The average age of the sequential and simultaneous learners was 3.8 years. Thirty-three percent of the sequential learners were born in Puerto Rico and seven percent of the simultaneous learners were born in Puerto Rico. The mothers who participated in the study were Puerto Rican descent with low income and had children who were bilingual. The average age of the mothers of the sequential learners was 27.2 years and the average age of the mothers of the simultaneous learners was 25.5 years. The average number years of education of the mothers of the sequential learners was 10.4 and the average number of years of education of the mothers of simultaneous learners was Forty percent and fifty percent of the mothers of sequential and simultaneous learners were employed, 4

5 respectively. Ninety-three percent of the mothers of the sequential learners were born in Puerto Rico and a fifty percent of the mothers of the simultaneous learners were born in Puerto Rico. Procedures: As part of a larger study, three home visits were conducted with the mothers. The first home visit occurred when the mother and child were enrolled in the study four months into the child s first year in Head Start. The second visit occurred at the end of the child s first year and the third visit occurred at the beginning of the child s second year at Head Start. During these semiannual visits, questionnaires (environmental measures) were read to the mothers by trained home visitors. The Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) (Radloff, 1977) was used to identify depressive symptoms in the mothers. Many studies have proved the efficiency and validity of the CES-D in recognizing symptoms of depression (See Mahard, 1988). In general, among many of the self-report symptom questionnaires for depression, the CES-D is one of the most broadly used (Cho, Moscicki, Narrow, Rae, Locke & Regier, 1993). This questionnaire has been translated into various languages including Spanish (M.J. Cho et al., 1993). It consists of 20 items and a total score of 60 points and the questions points toward depressive symptoms during the past week and the cutoff score for depression is 16. This scale was translated in Spanish and given to the mothers in the language they preferred. As the other part of the project, the children were given the Test of Early Reading Abilities II (TERA-II). It examines letter awareness, concepts of print and environmental print knowledge. This test was given towards the end of the children s first year in Head Start and towards the beginning of the children s second year. Analyses: First, the CES-D of every mother at each time was scored. The data from the home visits was entered into a database. After obtaining the resulting scores, the number of mothers showing depressive symptoms was determined. The cutoff for depression based on the CES-D was 16. Every mother, who scored 16 or above was considered as showing depressive symptoms. Next, the means for the three home visits were determined. A correlation between mothers mean scores on the CES-D and children s literacy abilities as measured by the TERA-2 was calculated. Results: Presence of maternal Depressive symptomatology: Table 1 presents the mothers who showed signs of depressive symptomatology at various points in time during their children s preschool years. Between 50%-60% of the mothers of sequential learners showed depressive symptoms at a given time and between 35%-53% of the mothers of simultaneous learners showed depressive symptoms during one of the home visits. Note the percentage of mothers of simultaneous learners who showed depressive symptoms decreased over time, while the percentage of mothers of sequential learners who showed depressive symptoms kept constant. 5

6 Table 1 Presence of Depressive Symptoms Presence of Depression Sequential Learners Simultaneous Learners Time 1 60% 53% Time 2 50% 42% Time 3 57% 35% Table 2 shows the percentage of mothers who demonstrated chronic depressive symptomatology (mothers who completed all 3 home visits). Of the 35 mothers, 31 completed the CES-D scales all the three times. The number of participants dropped because some of the mothers were unavailable at test time and some did not complete the study. This table reflects that a small percentage (9%) of mothers of the sequential and simultaneous learners were depressed over the three times. Table 2 Mothers with chronic depression symptoms Group Quantities Percentage SE 2/13 15% SI 1/18 5% OVERALL 3/31 9% Table 3 shows the means for the mothers that completed all three home visits. The means were compared using a t-test. These results revealed that there was no significant difference between 6

7 the two groups (t =.99. p =.35). Mothers of sequential and simultaneous learners did not differ with regard to the presence of chronic depressive symptomatology. Table 3 Means of CES-D Scores from Home Visits 1-3 Group Means SD SE SI Relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and children s literacy outcomes: The standard score for the entire group of preschoolers on the TERA was 82 at the second administration. The correlation between mothers depressive symptomatology and their children s literacy outcomes was not significant (r = -.08, p=.66). This indicated that the presence of chronic maternal depression was not related to children s literacy abilities when children began their second year in Head Start. Discussion: The results suggest that a large percentage of sequential and simultaneous mothers showed signs of depression at various point in time, with between 35% and 57% of the mothers displaying depressive symptoms. These findings are very concerning due to the high percentage of mothers with depressive symptoms. There are different reasons why these mothers might be depressed. Some of the factors that may be related are: poverty, level of education achieved, social and friends support, and language isolation. Murray (1997) argued that a high percentage of depressed women was related to economic strains, raising a child who was under six years old and to the absence of a close relative as confidant. Additionally, Leadbeater & Linares (1992) proposed that most depressive symptoms in mothers occur in the presence of other risk factors such as poverty, poor educational levels, single parenting, constant worry about life situations and reduced social support. In some other cases, another reason might be the difficulty of raising children, often by themselves. A common characteristic of many families was the absence or little involvement of the fathers. For example, about 77% and 42% of the fathers of the sequential and simultaneous learners respectively, were involved with their child 5 to 7 days a week (Hammer & Miccio, 1999). However, the factor most mentioned by researchers is poverty. 7

8 Poverty is a more serious stressor for a family that has to raise a child, and it may affect the relationship between mother and child. As previously mentioned, mothers who experience poverty daily in their lives are more susceptible to depression than mothers more financially stable (Belle, 1990). Often, maternal depressive symptoms work as indicators of a difficult economic situation compromising the mother and child well being (Leadbeater & Linares, 1992). Research over the past two decades has revealed the interdependence between depressed person and their social context (Coyne & Downey, 1990, p.50). The correlation between the mothers depression mean and the children s average score on the TERA II showed that there was not significant difference between these two variables. In this correlation you would expect that the lower the depressive symptoms, the higher the child would score and vice versa. However the findings seem to show that the correlation between the mothers depressive symptoms and their children literacy outcomes is not significant. One reason for this might be that there are other risk factors affecting the children s literacy development. Depression by itself cannot explain the lower levels of literacy found in the Hispanic population. Another explanation for the non-significant correlation between the mothers depressive symptomatology and their children s literacy outcomes may be due to the fact that the study was conducted early in children s development. A year of follow-up is not very long time to see an expected effect. As part of the larger study mothers and children will be seen for three more times over an additional year and a half. During this time, the depressive symptoms of mothers and the literacy development of the children will be examined. References: Belle, D. (1990). Poverty and women s mental health. American Psychologist, 45, Cho, M.J., Moscicki, E.K., Narrow, W.E., Rae, D.S, Locke, B.Z., and Regier, D.A. (1993). Concordance between two measures of depression in the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 28, Cox, A., Puckering, C., Pound, A., and Mills, M. (1987). The impact of maternal depression in young children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 28, Coyne, J.C. & Downey, G. (1990). Children of Depressed Parents: An Integrative Review. Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 108, No. 1, Field, T. (1995). Infants of depressed mothers. Infant behavior and development 18, Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (1999). America s children: Key national indictors of well-being. Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Frankenburg, W., and Dodds, J. (1992). Denver developmental screening test-ii. Denver, CO: Denver Developmental Materials. 8

9 Hammer and Miccio, (1999). Bilingual preschoolers: precursor to literacy. Grant Application to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Hofferth, S. (1999). Receipt of public assistant by Mexican American and Cuban American children in native and immigrants families. In D. Hernandez (Ed.), Children of immigrants: Health, adjustment and public assistance. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Leadbeater, B.J. & Linares, O. (1992). Depressive symptoms in black and Puerto Rican adolescent mothers in the first 3 years of postpartum. Development and Psychopathy, 4, Leadbeater. B.J. & Bishop, S.J. (1996). Quality of Mother-Toddler Interactions, Maternal Depressive Symptoms, and behavior problems in preschoolers of adolescent mothers. Developmental Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 2, Lyons-Ruth, K., Zoll, D., Connell, D. and Grunebaum, H.U. (1986). The depressed mother and her one-year-old infant: Environment, interaction, attachment, and infant development. In E.Z. Tronick, T. Field (eds.), Maternal depression and infant disturbance. New directions for child development, 34. San Francisco Jossey Bass. Mahard, R.E. (1998). The CES-D as a measure of depressive mood in the elderly Puerto Rican population. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 43, McArthur, E. (1993). Language characteristics and schooling in the United States, A changing picture: 1979 and National Center of Education Statistics, Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. McLane, J.B., & McNamee, G.D. (1900). Early literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McLaughlin, B. (1984). Second-Language Acquisition in Childhood: Vol. 1. Preschool children, 2 nd ed. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, Associates, Inc. Murray, Lynne (1997). Postpartum depression and child development, Chapter 9. New York: Guilford Press. Murray, L., Fiori-Cowley, A. and Hooper, R. (1996). The impact of postnatal depression and associated adversity on early mother-infant interactions and later infant outcome. Child development, 67, President s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans (1996). Our Nation on the Fault Line: Hispanic American Education. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 9

10 Snow, C.E., Burns, M.S., Griffin, P. (Eds.). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy press. 10