Poster #116 - Promoting Caregiver Contingent Talk During Picture Book Reading in a Diverse SES Sample

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

Children from disadvantaged families tend to have limited language skills compared to their advantaged peers. This social gradient emerges as early as the second year of life and persists through childhood with long term consequences for academic achievement, economic success and wellbeing (Blanden, 2006; Gascoigne & Gross, 2017; Law, Charlton, & Asmussen, 2017). Recent studies point to parenting interventions as having the most potential to change this picture (Belsky et al., 2007). Indeed, one aspect of caregiver communication, contingent talk, has been found to be both causally related to early language development and amenable to promotion in populations at risk due to social disadvantage (McGillion, Pine, Herbert, & Matthews, 2017). Contingent talk refers to a style of communication whereby the caregiver talks about what is in their infant's current focus of attention. At the same time, correlational research has identified shared book reading as a promising means of promoting early language development (Bus et al., 1995; Mol et al., 2008). Looking at picture books with infants is a context that is especially likely to facilitate contingent talk. The current pre-registered Randomised Controlled Trial tests the effects of an intervention to promote caregiver contingent talk while looking at picture books on child language outcomes in a socio-economically diverse group of British families.

156 typically-developing British 11-month-olds (Mean age: 335 days; 79 female) and their primary caregivers were randomly allocated, following CONSORT guidelines, to a book-gifting plus contingent talk intervention condition or a book-gifting control condition. 35% of families lived in the most deprived 30% of neighbourhoods in England. Caregivers randomised to the intervention condition were given seven age-appropriate picture books, shown a video describing contingent talk and asked to practice it while looking at picture books with their infants, daily, for four months. Caregivers in the control condition were given the same books but no information around frequency or manner of book sharing. Frequency of shared book reading was measured using caregiver report at baseline and at intervention end (at 15m). Child expressive vocabulary was measured at 11 months and post-test, when the infant was 15 and 18 months, using the UK-CDI (Alcock, et al., in prep) and at 21 months and 24 months using the toddler LCDI (Meints et al, 2017). In addition at 15m real time measures of infant word understanding (accuracy and reaction time) were collected using the using the Looking While Listening paradigm (Fernald et al., 2008).

There was no difference in the frequency of shared book reading across intervention groups. Controlling for child vocabulary at baseline, there was no effect of condition on child expressive vocabulary at 15m or 18m (Figure 1) or any measure of real time language processing at 15m. Exploring interactions with SES did not improve model fit for any measure. Data collection is ongoing at 21 and 24 months. We will report complete longitudinal findings within the broader context of different types of parenting interventions during the infancy period.

Authors

• Michelle McGillion, University of Sheffield
  Presenting Author

• Danielle Matthews, University of Sheffield
  Non-Presenting Author