Parental Involvement in Language-Delayed Young Children’s English Language Acquisition

Authors

  • Gurdip Kaur Saminder Singh

    Faculty of Education and Humanities, UNITAR University College Kuala Lumpur (UUCKL), Kuala Lumpur 50450, Malaysia
  • Farah Naaz

    Centre for English Language Studies, Sunway University, Petaling Jaya 47500, Malaysia
  • Menaga Kumar

    School of Education, Taylors University, Subang Jaya 47500, Malaysia
  • Ramila Devi

    Faculty of Business, UNITAR International University, Petaling Jaya 47301, Malaysia
  • Veena Joshi

    Faculty of Medicine, MAHSA University, Kuala Lumpur 59100, Malaysia
  • Radhega Ramasamy

    SEHS School of Education, Humanities & Social Sciences, Wawasan Open University (WOU), Penang 10050, Malaysia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i6.9951
Received: 11 May 2025 | Revised: 20 May 2025 | Accepted: 22 May 2025 | Published Online: 5 June 2025

Abstract

Global research has indicated that over half of children entering reception have language levels below expectations, a problem that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to increased cases of language delay. This has prompted parents to collaborate with educators to support their children's language development. This explorative case-based study, which was qualitative in nature, was intended to study how parents perceived language delay and the strategies they used at home in assisting their language-delayed children. Based on findings from the in-depth interviews, four major themes emerged surrounding the study’s research questions: parents perceptions on ‘language-delay’, relationship between level of parental involvement and improvement of language proficiency, challenges faced in supporting English language acquisition among language-delayed children and successful strategies used by parents to teach English to their language-delayed young learners. On the theme strategies used by parents, it was found that Specific-Outcome Praise (SOP), Play-based Learning (PBL), Technology-Mediated Language Learning (TMLL), and creating a Language Rich Environment (LRE) contributed effectively towards children’s language development. The findings of this study are crucial as these insights can guide educators, policymakers, and parents in developing targeted interventions and collaborative approaches to enhance early language acquisition among language-delayed young learners.

Keywords:

Children; Language-Delay; Parents; English Language

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How to Cite

Saminder Singh, G. K., Abd Yunos, F. N., Kumar, M., Ram Sing, R. D., Joshi, V., & Ramasamy, R. (2025). Parental Involvement in Language-Delayed Young Children’s English Language Acquisition. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(6), 420–436. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i6.9951

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 6 (July 2025)

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Gurdip Kaur Saminder Singh, Farah Naaz, Menaga Kumar, Ramila Devi, Veena Joshi, Radhega Ramasamy

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.