We are pleased to announce that professor Danielle Matthews will speak at our upcoming Online BRC Colloquium.
Can Digital Parenting Interventions Benefit Early Language Development?
Danielle Matthews, Professor of Psychology, University of Sheffield
Abstract: I will report on a series of projects that evaluated a digital, smartphone-based service for parents of babies and toddlers to test whether it could support parent-child interaction and thereby promote early language development, mitigating risks of vulnerability associated with socio-economic disadvantage. The service offers parents weekly text messages linking to co-developed BBC Tiny Happy People videos about developmentally timely strategies to scaffold language development. Additional, targeted support is offered via video-call with a Speech and Language Therapist. In evaluations of two services for parents of infants and toddlers respectively, we hypothesised benefits for child language (primary outcome) and parental linguistic responsiveness (secondary outcome) moderated by parent education (degree/no degree).
The two pre-registered Randomised Controlled Trials included families from the least advantaged half of each UK nation with either 9- to 19-month-olds (Infant RCT, N = 423) or 28- to 37-month-olds (Toddler RCT, N = 380). Families with children who did not hear English most of the time (N = 26) or had early diagnosed Speech Language and Communication Needs (N = 61) were instead included in a mixed-methods acceptability study. For the RCTs, we randomly allocated participants to the language service or a closely matched physical health service. Outcomes were assessed blind to condition at family homes after one year with parent reports, naturalistic measures and standardised tests. For the infants with parents who did not have a degree, the service was effective in promoting parental linguistic responsiveness and child language. There were no benefits for the toddler group. Parents of both age groups said they would recommend the service to a friend but parents of toddlers noted lack of time as a barrier and clicked on video content less often. Parents in the mixed-methods study recommended more content to match both child age and development stage. They valued Speech and Language Therapist calls and multilingual content. Digital services for parents have potential, particularly during infancy and for families where caregivers do not have a degree and/or have a concern about their child’s speech, language and communication. For parents of toddlers, further co-development is needed in partnership with Early Years Education and Care settings. Overall, the findings suggest the infancy service has practical value.
Online meeting
This meeting will take place online. Join here (Meeting ID: 268 487 1397, Passcode: 58463)