家庭脈絡下的親子共讀與幼兒發展關係──臺灣幼兒發展調查資料庫的應用與分析

Effects of Shared Book Reading Practices on Child Development in the Context of Taiwanese Families: Applying Data from Kids in Taiwan Study

本文使用臺灣幼兒發展調查資料庫36月齡幼兒第一波家庭問卷資料，旨在了解臺灣家庭中親子共讀的實施情況，以及家庭社經地位、親子共讀兩個因素對幼兒發展的直接與間接因果關係路徑，分析資料共納入2,164位幼兒。研究結果發現：臺灣育有36月齡幼兒的家庭中，約三分之二的父母每週會共讀至少一次，約三分之一的父母則從未與孩子共讀或共讀次數每週少於一次。再者，透過結構方程模式分析發現：親子共讀的實施受到家庭社經地位直接的影響，標準化迴歸係數為.60，意謂家庭社經地位這個因素可解釋親子共讀36％的變異性；親子共讀同時也對幼兒發展具有.51的直接效果，可解釋幼兒發展變異的28％，但家庭社經地位並沒有直接影響幼兒的發展，而是透過親子共讀的中介對幼兒發展產生間接影響。在各項幼兒發展能力中，親子共讀對幼兒的認知記憶能力和語言表達能力有最明顯的效果，效果量分別達.44和.41，其次是幼兒的情緒能力和讀寫萌發能力，效果量分別達.38和.37。親子共讀對幼兒的社會能力、注意力／執行功能、語言理解的發展也有正向效果，但效果量相對較小。另外，本研究也透過多群組分析，檢視受訪者為父親或母親、幼兒托育照顧方式與時間、幼兒的性別或出生排序對此因果路徑關係有無調節效果。結果均無發現有群組差異，顯示無論是由父親或母親所進行的共讀，對幼兒發展均有顯著效果，幼兒的性別或出生排序也沒有對結果造成差異。但幼兒托育照顧方式與時間則出現群組差異，當幼兒接受的每日托育照顧服務時間愈長（如11－24小時），親子共讀對幼兒發展的影響效果就愈高。

In this study, we used the data from the study of Kids in Taiwan: National Longitudinal Study of Child Development and Care to understand parent-child shared book reading practices in Taiwan and the association between home environment factors, such as socio-economic status and childcare operation, and shared book reading practices as well as between shared book reading practices and children's development in cognition, language, and socio-emotions when they were 36 months old. The total number of children who participated in this study was 2,164. This study found that about two thirds of the parents read books to their children at least once a week, and one-third of the parents never read to their children or read to them less than once a week. Moreover, using structural equation modeling analysis, three latent variables were constructed, namely the socio-economic status, shared book reading practices, and the development of the child. The results indicated that socio-economic status had a significant relation with shared book reading practices. The β value was 0.6, which indicated that the socio-economic status factor could explain 36% variation of shared book reading practices. Furthermore, shared book reading practices had a β value of 0.51 (i.e., explaining 28% variation) for its relation with the development of the child. Socio-economic status, however, exhibited an insignificant relation with the development of the child. In this sense, shared book reading practices mediated the relationship between the socio-economic status and the development of the child. Shared book reading practices exhibited the highest effect on the cognitive memory development of a child and had a large effect on the language expression and emotional development of the child. In this study, we also compared different subgroups to investigate the existence of moderating factors and found that the respondent types (father or mother), child's gender, and birth order did not have any moderating effect on the causal model. Noninvariance of structural weights was observed in three subgroups of childcare operations. A stronger relation between the socio-economic status and shared book reading practices was observed for parents who did not use any childcare services (i.e., children who were cared by their own parents full time) than for parents who used childcare services less than 10 hours per day and parents who used childcare services 11-24 hours per day. The effects of shared book reading practices on the child's development was the largest for the group using 11-24 hours of childcare services but was the least for the group that did not use childcare services. This result may imply that shared book reading practices can improve the child's development most effectively though parents who can only spend limited time with their children.