Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T05:10:06.809Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An intervention to increase conversational turns between parents and young children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2020

Kathryn A. LEECH Open the ORCID record for Kathryn A. LEECH [Opens in a new window]  and
Meredith L. ROWE
Kathryn A. LEECH*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Meredith L. ROWE
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Graduate School of Education
*
Address for correspondence: Kathryn Leech 301N Peabody Hall CB 3500 Chapel Hill, NC27599 E-mail: [email protected]; (919) 843-6158
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Behavioral and neural evidence indicates that young children who engage in more conversations with their parents have better later language skills such as vocabulary and academic language abilities. Previous studies find that the extent to which parents engage in conversational turn-taking with children varies considerably. How, then, can we promote extended conversations between parents and their children? Instead of asking parents to engage in longer turn-taking episodes, we provided parents with information on conversational content that we hypothesized would lead to increased episodes of longer, more sustained conversational turn-taking. Specifically, we found that boosting the frequency of parent-child talk about abstract, non-present concepts – decontextualized language – led to an increase in dyadic conversational turn-taking during home mealtimes several weeks later.

Keywords

parent-child interactiondecontextualized languageinterventionconversational turn-taking
Type
Brief Research Report
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , March 2021 , pp. 399 - 412
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adamson, L. B., Bakeman, R., Deckner, D. F., & Nelson, P. B. (2012). Rating parent–child interactions: Joint engagement, communication dynamics, and shared topics in autism, Down syndrome, and typical development. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42(12), 2622–2635.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beals, D. (2001). Eating and reading: links between family conversations with preschoolers and later language and literacy. In Dickinson, D.K and Tabors, P.O. (Eds.) Beginning Literacy with Language: Young Children Learning at Home and School. Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing, 75–92.Google Scholar
Bruner, J. (1983). Child's talk: Learning to use language. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Cartmill, E. A., Armstrong, B. F., Gleitman, L. R., Goldin-Meadow, S., Medina, T. N., & Trueswell, J. C. (2013). Quality of early parent input predicts child vocabulary 3 years later. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(28), 11278–11283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, E. V. (2014). Pragmatics in acquisition. Journal of Child Language, 41(S1), 105–116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conti-Ramsden, G., & Friel-Patti, S. (1987). Situational variability in mother-child conversations. Children's Language, 6, 43–63.Google Scholar
Conti-Ramsden, G., Hutcheson, G. D., & Grove, J. (1995). Contingency and breakdown: Children with SLI and their conversations with mothers and fathers. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 38(6), 1290–1302.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cummins, J. (1983). Language proficiency and academic achievement. Issues in Language Testing Research, 108–130.Google Scholar
Curenton, S. M., & Justice, L. M. (2004). African American and Caucasian preschoolers’ use of decontextualized language: Literate language features in oral narratives. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35, 240–253.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Demir, Ö. E., Rowe, M. L., Heller, G., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. C. (2015). Vocabulary, syntax, and narrative development in typically developing children and children with early unilateral brain injury: Early parental talk about the “there-and-then” matters. Developmental Psychology, 51, 1611–1675.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Temple, J. M., & Beals, D. E. (1991). Family talk: Sources of support for the development of decontextualized language skills. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6(1), 11–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dickinson, D., & Tabors, P. (Eds.). (2001). Beginning literacy with language: Young children learning at home and school. Baltimore: Brookes Publishing.Google Scholar
Dunn, J., & Brophy, M. (2005). Communication, relationships, and individual differences in children's understanding of mind. In Astington, J. & Baird, J. (Eds.), Why language matters for theory of mind. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dunn, J., & Cutting, A. (1999). Understanding others, and individual differences in friendship interactions in young children. Social Development, 8, 201–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ensor, R., & Hughes, C. (2008). Content or connectedness? Mother–child talk and early social understanding. Child Development, 79(1), 201–216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilkerson, J., Richards, J. A., Warren, S. F., Oller, D. K., Russo, R., & Vohr, B. (2018). Language experience in the second year of life and language outcomes in late childhood. Pediatrics, 142(4), e20174276.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldin-Meadow, S., Levine, S. C., Hedges, L. V., Huttenlocher, J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Small, S. L. (2014). New evidence about language and cognitive development based on a longitudinal study: Hypotheses for intervention. American Psychologist, 69(6), 588–599.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golinkoff, R. M., Hoff, E., Rowe, M. L., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2019). Language Matters: Denying the Existence of the 30-Million-Word Gap Has Serious Consequences. Child Development, 90(3), 985–992.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hart, B., & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H Brookes Publishing.Google Scholar
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Adamson, L. B., Bakeman, R., Owen, M. T., Golinkoff, R. M., Pace, A., Yust, P. K. S., & Suma, K. (2015). The contribution of early communication quality to low-income children's language success. Psychological Science, 26(7), 1071–1083.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M., & Lyons, T. (1991). Early vocabulary growth: relation to language input and gender. Developmental Psychology, 27(2), 236–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huttenlocher, J., Waterfall, H., Vasilyeva, M., Vevea, J., & Hedges, L. V. (2010). Sources of variability in children's language growth. Cognitive Psychology, 61(4), 343–365.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuhl, P. K. (2007). Is speech learning ‘gated’ by the social brain? Developmental Science, 10(1), 110–120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leech, K., Wei, R., Harring, J. R., & Rowe, M. L. (2018). A brief parent-focused intervention to improve preschoolers’ conversational skills and school readiness. Developmental Psychology, 54(1), 15–28.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk (3rd Ed.). Mahwah: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Reed, J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2017). Learning on hold: Cell phones sidetrack parent-child interactions. Developmental Pychology, 53(8), 1428–1436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Romeo, R. R., Leonard, J. A., Robinson, S. T., West, M. R., Mackey, A. P., Rowe, M. L., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2018a). Beyond the 30-million-word gap: Children's conversational exposure is associated with language-related brain function. Psychological Science, 29(5), 700–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romeo, R. R., Segaran, J., Leonard, J. A., Robinson, S. T., West, M. R., Mackey, A. P., Yendiki, A., Rowe, M. L., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2018b). Language exposure relates to structural neural connectivity in childhood. Journal of Neuroscience, 38(36), 7870–7877.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, M. L. (2012). A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development. Child Development, 83(5), 1762–1774.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Slomkowski, C., & Dunn, J. (1996). Young children's understanding of other people's beliefs and feelings and their connected communication with friends. Developmental Psychology, 32, 442–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1983). Literacy and language: Relationships during the preschool years. Harvard Educational Review, 53, 165–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1991). The theoretical basis for the relationships between language and literacy in development. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 6, 5–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C.E., & Uccelli, P. (2009). The challenge of academic language. In Olson, D.R. & Torrance, N. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of literacy (pp. 112–133). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suskind, D. L., Leffel, K. R., Graf, E., Hernandez, M. W., Gunderson, E. A., Sapolich, S. G., Suskind, E., Leininger, L., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. C. (2016). A parent-directed language intervention for children of low socioeconomic status: A randomized controlled pilot study. Journal of Child Language, 43(2), 366–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tabors, P. O., Roach, K. A., & Snow, C. E. (2001). Home language and literacy environments: Final results. In Dickinson, D. K. & Tabors, P. O. (Eds.), Beginning literacy with language: Young children learning at home and in school (111–38). Baltimore: Brookes.Google Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Kuchirko, Y., & Song, L. (2014). Why is infant language learning facilitated by parental responsiveness?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23(2), 121–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uccelli, P., Demir-Lira, Ö. E., Rowe, M. L., Levine, S., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2018). Children's early decontextualized talk predicts academic language proficiency in mid-adolescence. Child Development, 1–14.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Westby, C. E. (1991). Learning to talk-talking to learn: Oral-literate language differences. In Simon, C. (Ed.), Communication skills and classroom success: Therapy methodologies for language learning disabled students (pp. 181–218). San Diego, CA: College-Hill Press.Google Scholar
Zhang, Y., Xu, X., Jiang, F., Gilkerson, J., Xu, D., Richards, J. A., Harnsberger, J., & Topping, K. J. (2015). Effects of quantitative linguistic feedback to caregivers of young children: A pilot study in China. Communication Disorders Quarterly, 37(1), 16–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, F. J., Gilkerson, J., Richards, J. A., Christakis, D. A., Xu, D., Gray, S., & Yapanel, U. (2009). Teaching by listening: The importance of adult-child conversations to language development. Pediatrics, 124(1), 342–349.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed