Is Mastery Motivation a Mediator of Relations between Maternal Teaching Behavior and Developmental Abilities in Children with Global Developmental Delay?

Abstract

Aims: Mastery motivation refers to a child’s persistent attempts to solve problems and learn skills. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine whether children’s mastery motivation-mediated relationships between early maternal teaching behavior and later developmental abilities in children with global developmental delay (GDD). Methods: Fifty-six dyads of mothers and their children with GDD (aged 24–42 months) were assessed two times, at study entry and 6-months later. Maternal teaching behaviors were assessed using the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale. Children’s developmental abilities and mastery motivation were measured using the Comprehensive Developmental Inventory for Infants and Toddlers and the revised Individualized Moderately Challenging Mastery Tasks, respectively. A Pearson correlation matrix was used to propose hypothetical models, and path analysis was used to examine the mediation effect. Results: Mastery motivation significantly mediated the relationship between maternal teaching behavior and children’s cognitive, fine motor, and gross motor abilities 6 months later. Conclusions: Mothers’ teaching predicted their children’s development directly and also indirectly through the child’s mastery motivation. The findings support the importance of the quality of mothers teaching behaviors and the mastery motivation of children with GDD on development.

Keywords:

• Cognition
• developmental disabilities
• global developmental delay
• mastery motivation
• mother-child relations
• motor

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate all of the families of children with global developmental delay in northern Taiwan who participated in the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors reported no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

About the Authors

Pei-Jung Wang, PT, PhD, School and Graduate Institute of Physical Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Li-Chiou Chen, PT, PhD, is Assistant Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, Fooyin University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Hua-Fang Liao, PT, MSc, is Adjunct Associate Professor, School and Graduate Institute of Physical Therapy, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Is Academic Chair of the Taiwan Society of ICF, Taipei, Taiwan. Yu-Kang Tu, PhD, is Professor, Institute of Epidemiology & Preventive Medicine, College of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. Lu Lu, MD, PhD, is staff physician, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan. George. A. Morgan, PhD, is Professor Emeritus, education and human development, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.

Additional information

Funding

This paper’s findings, based on the Wang (2016) dissertation, are partially supported by a scholarship from the National Taiwan University Children and Family Research Center, the School and Graduate Institute of Physical Therapy and the Taiwan ICF Association. The writing of this paper was partially supported by a post-doctoral research grant to Dr. Wang from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST-106-2917-I-564-085), Taiwan for research at the School of Education, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado.