A Classroom Intervention With Enhanced e-Books: A Gene-by-Environment Experiment

• In Event: 66.017 - Content Features in Digitized Stories That Promote Young Children's Vocabulary and Story Comprehension

Abstract

Computer programs may be especially helpful for supporting children’s learning processes because they do not just offer practice but also provide scaffolding during learning, thus helping them to stay task-focused. Living Books is a technology-enhanced book reading program composed of eight different stories each repeated twice. The animated pictures, sounds, and music appearing simultaneous with the story text scaffold story and the story text comprehension and thus enable the child to understand story events and language even when the oral text is difficult for the child. Furthermore, enhanced e-books may, due to the film-like presentation, be helpful in staying focused while hearing the story.
In a sample of 583 kindergarten children from 136 schools, all delayed in literacy skills, we assigned part of the children to Living Books. Control children received a computer program targeting math skills (Clever Together). We contrasted children with an increased risk for attentional problems with children without such problems. As indicator we used a genetic characteristic, the DRD4 gene. Carriers of the long variant of this gene (about one-third of all children) typically show a less efficient production of dopamine. A previous study showed that children with a dopamine-related genetic polymorphism - DRD4 7-repeat – benefit more from living Books than children without this polymorphism, serving as a proxy for the dopamine-system related genetic pathway.
As predicted by the genetic differential susceptibility theory, Living Books showed a Gene x Environment interaction. Carriers of the DRD4 7-repeat allele profited significantly from additional Living Books (d = .75), whereas non-carriers did not benefit (d = .02). In carriers even a brief intervention of 2 to 3 hours with Living Books contributed substantially to their literacy skills despite a wealth of traditional book sharing available to them. Children with the 7-repeat-allele may fail to benefit from storybook reading in a regular classroom environment because they are easily flooded with irrelevant perceptual and auditory stimuli but they outperform their peers when they are exposed to enhanced e-books. Carriers of the 7-repeat allele show their full potential when placed in a learning environment that includes e-books. Thus, the academic success of one-third of all children can be enhanced if their susceptibility to the environment, for better and for worse, is acknowledged.
Enhanced e-books seem necessary to improve the literacy learning opportunities for a substantial subsample of children. The technological advance of the e-book can personalize support in new, compelling ways, leading to better outcomes for a substantial group of children.

Authors

• Adriana G. Bus, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

• Rachel Dominique Plak, Leiden University

• Inge Merkelbach, Leiden University