Poster #186 - Early Predictors of Shared-Book Reading Skill Attainment for Parents of Preschool Children with Externalizing Behavior Problems

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Dialogic reading (DR) is a well-examined evidence-based shared-reading intervention that positively affects young children’s language and literacy skills (Whitehurst et al., 1988). DR relies on teaching parents shared-reading skills that engage children in conversations about the book in order to increase literacy and understanding of narrative structure (Hargrave & Senechal, 2000). Children with externalizing behavior problems (EBPs) are at particular risk for academic and reading difficulties (Lonigan et al., 2017); therefore parental involvement in early literacy skill development is important. Just as gold-standard treatments for EBPs in preschoolers emphasize parent skill development, teaching parents DR techniques may be instrumental in enhancing preschoolers’ literacy outcomes. Previous work has demonstrated the initial promise of a brief DR intervention, embedded into one session of an 8-week group behavioral parent-training run concurrently with an intensive summer school readiness program for children with EBPs (Graziano, et. al, 2014), on parent reading skill acquisition (Poznanski et al., under review). Yet, it is increasingly important, to understand early parent and child factors that may impact the uptake of skills following interventions to elucidate for whom and under what conditions an intervention may be effective.
The present study seeks to expand upon the current literature evaluating parents’ DR skill development by examining the impact of parent stress (as measured by the Parenting Stress Index; Abidin, 1995), parenting practices (as measured by the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire; APQ; Frick, 1991), and child behavior (as measured by parent report on the Behavior Assessment Scale for Children; BASC-3; Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2015) on parent uptake of shared-book reading skills after a brief DR intervention for parents of preschool children (N = 190; 82.2% male, Mage = 4.8 years; 85.5% Hispanic/Latino) with EBPs. DR skills were evaluated by coding parent and child verbalizations in a 5-minute shared-reading task completed pre- and post-intervention. Given the data were count in nature, negative binomial regression analyses (see Table 1) were conducted with a subset of the sample (N=120) to understand predictors of parent use of DR skills and frequency of child verbalizations at post-intervention. Preliminary analyses reveal that negative parenting practices reported on the APQ prior to the intervention significantly predict uptake of parent DR skills. That is, parents with higher levels of negative parenting practices at pre-intervention utilize significantly fewer DR skills at post-intervention. Additionally, child behavior symptoms at pre-intervention predicted the frequency of child verbalizations related to the text at the trend level, indicating children with more behavior problems may verbalize more in the reading interaction, which conceptually is consistent with symptoms of EBPs.
The present analyses provide a preliminary look at parent and child characteristics that may impact the uptake of parent skills following a brief intervention. Findings may serve to understand for whom more individualized or tailored services may be necessary. Specifically, findings indicate that parents’ use of negative parenting practices at pre-intervention may impact the uptake of shared-reading skills. Addressing parenting practices at the start of interventions may be vital to enhancing the effectiveness of parent-training interventions for preschoolers with EBPs.

Authors

• Bridget Poznanski, Florida International University
  Presenting Author

• Katie Hart, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine Zambrana, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paulo Graziano, Florida International University
  Non-Presenting Author