Examining the promise of Parents Plus: A parent-intervention for preschoolers with developmental language disorder

• In Event: Using computer technology to expand detection and intervention for children with developmental disorders

Abstract

Nearly 1 million preschoolers in the U.S. have a disability. The largest percentage (40%) are diagnosed as having developmental language disorders (Hussar et al., 2020). Early intervention to improve young children’s language skills is critical because early language skills are related to school readiness and later academic success (e.g., August & Shanahan, 2006; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001). Equipping parents with the knowledge and skills to support their preschool children’s language development has led to improved child language outcomes (e.g., Girolametto et al., 2007; Roberts et al., 2019). Yet, most trainings for parents are provided in a face-to-face format that may be difficult to bring to scale (i.e., difficult for parents to attend, resource prohibitive for programs). To overcome these logistical challenges, we developed Parents Plus (P+), an online training program that is comprised of app-based multimedia modules and remote coaching from a speech-language pathologist. In P+, parents are taught to use focused stimulation (FS), an evidence-based language facilitation strategy (e.g., Girolametto et al., 1996; Smith-Lock et al., 2013), to facilitate their children’s vocabulary and morphosyntax. This session presents initial findings on children’s language outcomes as well as intervention parents’ perceptions of the usability and feasibility of P+ and their fidelity of implementation.

To date, the study has enrolled 27 of the projected 30 parent-child dyads. The dyads were randomly assigned to waitlist control (n = 13) or intervention (n = 14) conditions. Children’s mean age was 50 months (SD: 9 months). Approximately half of parents were White, while the other half were Latina (n=5) and Black (n=4). Parents’ education ranged from a high school degree to a graduate degree. Due to data collection delays due to COVID, we have analyzed data for 20 dyads (10 intervention and 10 control). The remaining data will be analyzed before the presentation.

As shown in Table 1, parents reported P+ was usable and feasible. Parents’ implementation of FS was examined through coding of parent-child videos. Parents were taught to provide a 3:1 ratio of language models to provision of feedback. Parents were able to implement FS with near fidelity with vocabulary targets (4:1 ratio) and with fidelity with morphosyntax targets (3:1 ratio).

Children’s language skills were assessed pre- and post-intervention through a play-based language sample collected by trained data collectors. Per Table 2, pre- and post-language samples were coded for vocabulary and morphosyntax variables that were targeted in P+. No significant differences existed between condition at pre-test. Regression analysis revealed no significant treatment effect for any post-test scores when controlling for pre-test scores, which was not unexpected given the small sample size. Effect sizes show the promise of P+ with a range of small (d= .27) to very large effects (d=4.42). Also, on the norm-referenced Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF P-2), we found a medium intervention effect size (d=.54).

In sum, results to date indicates that P+ is a usable and feasible way for a diverse sample of parents to learn FS, which in turn is showing very promising language outcomes for children.

Authors

• Brook Sawyer, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Carol Scheffner Hammer, Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie Smith, Teachers College Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Julie Santoro, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yin Cai, Lehigh University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Annemarie H Hindman, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author