How Parents Can Help Babies Learn to Talk With Picture Books.

NCT ID: NCT02780557

Last Updated: 2018-05-04

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 156 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2016-08-24
• Study Completion Date: 2018-03-22

Brief Summary

The aim of this project is to test whether giving parents advice about book reading is effective in promoting language learning for infants from a range of socio-economic backgrounds.

Detailed Description

Children from disadvantaged families tend to have limited language skills compared to their advantaged peers. While many factors contribute to language ability, two aspects of the early caregiving environment are known to be correlated with child language outcomes 1) caregiver-child book reading and 2) caregiver contingent talk. Contingent talk refers to a style of communication whereby the caregiver talks about what is in their infant's current focus of attention. This style of talking can be facilitated when parents read books with their babies. The aim of this research is to establish whether asking parents to engage in contingent talk in the context of book reading promotes vocabulary learning. This study will compare the effects of an intervention to promote contingent talk against a control where parents are given books but not given any training in how to read them in a contingent manner. The study will include children from socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged families.

Conditions

Language Development

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE
• Blinding Strategy: QUADRUPLE

Study Groups

Contingent Reading Intervention

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Contingent Reading Intervention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Caregivers will be provided with 6 picture books. They will be trained to use contingent talk when looking at picture books with their infants. They will be asked to spend 10 mintues each day engaging in contingent talk while looking at picture books. The intervention will run for 4 months. Parents will be asked to keep a daily reading diary.

Book Provision Control

Group Type: OTHER

Book Provision Control

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Caregivers will be provided with 6 picture books. They will not be trained to read with their child. They will receive information from other sources (e.g. health visitors and Book Start schemes) as normal.

Interventions

Contingent Reading Intervention

Caregivers will be provided with 6 picture books. They will be trained to use contingent talk when looking at picture books with their infants. They will be asked to spend 10 mintues each day engaging in contingent talk while looking at picture books. The intervention will run for 4 months. Parents will be asked to keep a daily reading diary.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Book Provision Control

Caregivers will be provided with 6 picture books. They will not be trained to read with their child. They will receive information from other sources (e.g. health visitors and Book Start schemes) as normal.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

Infants must be:

• first born and singletons
• full term (i.e. born no more than 3 weeks prematurely)
• with birth weight over 2.5 kg.

Primary caregivers must:

• work less than 24 hours per week (i.e., be the caregiver the child spends most time with)
• be raising their child as monolingual English speakers.

Exclusion Criteria

Neither caregivers nor infants must have any significant known physical, mental or learning disability.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 11 Months
• Maximum Eligible Age: 11 Months
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

University of Sheffield

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Danielle Matthews

Reader in Cognitive Development

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Danielle E Matthews, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Sheffield

Locations

University of Sheffield

Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Countries

United Kingdom

Other Identifiers

R/139470-11-1-INFANCY

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id