Impact of Home Literacy Environment on Literacy Development of Children with Intellectual Disabilities: A Moderated Mediation Model

Abstract

Research on the effects of the home literacy environment (HLE) on the literacy development of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) is limited, and relevant results are inconsistent. This study aimed to explore the influence of the HLE on the literacy development of children with ID, and the role of the reading interest and parent–child relationship in this process. The subjects of this study were 381 children with ID from special needs schools in 7 regions of China, including 234 boys and 147 girls aged 6–15 years. This study adopted the network survey method, and parents of these children completed the surveys of the HLE, literacy development, reading interest, and parent–child relationship. The results revealed that the HLE significantly influenced the literacy development of children with ID, and the reading interest partially mediated this effect. In this mediating process, the regression relationship between the HLE and the reading interest was positively regulated by the parent–child relationship. This study suggests that improving the HLE and parent–child relationship is beneficial for the reading interest and literacy development of children with ID.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all participants of this study. In particular, we thank Qizhi School of Shunde District, Foshan, Guangdong province for their assistance with pre-testing the literacy development scale.

Disclosure statement

None of the authors has any conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China under grant number [20BRK038] and the Humanities and Social Sciences Fund of the Ministry of Education in China under grant number [20YJA890019].