The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between maternal perceived locus of control (PLOC), perceived self-efficacy (PSE), and mother and child gains during a mother-implemented early language and print awareness program. Thirty mother-child dyads (with typically-developing, preschool-aged children) were randomly assigned to either an immediate-training group (ITG) or a delayed-training control group (DTCG). The mothers in the ITG participated in 4 training sessions over the course of a month. Data about mothers’ use of target strategies, mothers’ responsivity, children’s knowledge of print concepts, and child language samples were collected at baseline, 1-month, and 2-months for both groups.
The training program was efficacious, as evidenced by greater gains in the ITG mothers’ target strategy use, responsivity, and children’s knowledge of print concepts as compared to DTCG mothers and children respectively. The ITG children significantly increased the number of different words they produced during their language samples from baseline to follow-up.
Mothers with a more external PLOC and/or a lower PSE score tended to use fewer strategies at baseline and make greater gains in strategy use over the course of training. Similarly, children whose mothers had a more external PLOC tended to identify fewer print concepts at baseline and make greater gains during training. Conversely, children whose mothers had a lower sense of PSE tended to use a greater variety of words and have a higher number of different words/number of total words ratio at baseline. The results of this study support the incorporation of maternal PLOC and PSE into evidence-based clinical decision-making and provide avenues for future research.