title: A parent-directed language intervention for children of low socioeconomic status: a randomized controlled pilot study.
abstract: We designed a parent-directed home-visiting intervention targeting socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in children's early language environments. A randomized controlled trial was used to evaluate whether the intervention improved parents' knowledge of child language development and increased the amount and diversity of parent talk. Twenty-three mother-child dyads (12 experimental, 11 control, aged 1;5-3;0) participated in eight weekly hour-long home-visits. In the experimental group, but not the control group, parent knowledge of language development increased significantly one week and four months after the intervention. In lab-based observations, parent word types and tokens and child word types increased significantly one week, but not four months, post-intervention. In home-based observations, adult word tokens, conversational turn counts, and child vocalization counts increased significantly during the intervention, but not post-intervention. The results demonstrate the malleability of child-directed language behaviors and knowledge of child language development among low-SES parents.
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago Medicine,Department of Surgery,Division of Otolaryngology.
authors.forename: Dana L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Suskind
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago Medicine,Department of Surgery,Division of Otolaryngology.
authors.forename: Kristin R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Leffel
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago Medicine,Department of Surgery,Division of Otolaryngology.
authors.forename: Eileen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Graf
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago,National Opinion Research Center.
authors.forename: Marc W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Hernandez
authors.affiliation: Temple University,Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Gunderson
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago,School of Social Service Administration.
authors.forename: Shannon G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Sapolich
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago Medicine,Department of Surgery,Division of Otolaryngology.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Suskind
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health,University of Illinois,Chicago.
authors.forename: Lindsey
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Leininger
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago,Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Goldin-Meadow
authors.affiliation: University of Chicago,Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Susan C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Levine