Parent-child interaction and children's language development V1

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  IMPACT: Improving parent and child interaction to enhance oral language development

• IRAS ID

  208243

• Contact name

  Penny Levickis

• Contact email

  penny.levickis@newcastle.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Newcastle University

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 8 months, 30 days

• Research summary

  Acquiring good oral language skills is critical to both individual well-being and human health. While many children appear to acquire language with ease, one in five children will struggle to develop adequate language skills. Persistent language difficulties may result in poorer academic outcomes, worse job opportunities, and poorer economic and health well-being. One factor which appears vital to a child’s language development is the quality of their home language environment. More socially disadvantaged families tend to offer their toddlers fewer opportunities for language learning than more advantaged families. One approach to improving child oral language skills and potentially reducing inequalities is to identify parent-child interaction interventions to promote an optimal home language environment. However, we need to know how to identify and engage families that will benefit most from these types of interventions. This study aims to address this by:

  1) exploring the expectations and experiences of parents/caregivers who are taking part in these types of parent-child interaction programmes
  2) examining whether heath visitors can be trained to use a rating scale of parent-child interaction to identify families who could benefit from parent-child interaction interventions

  To address aim 1, parents/caregivers taking part in parent-child interaction programmes aimed at enhancing child oral language will be invited to participate in a face-to-face interview in the home. For aim 2, five health visitors will be recruited and trained to use an observational rating scale of parent-child interaction. Health visitors will then each observe 20 parents and their toddlers during 8 minutes of free-play. Health visitors’ ratings will then be compared to researcher ratings. Findings from this study will help to inform the design of future parent-child interaction interventions and to identify families that will benefit most from these interventions. This study will take place between February 2017 and December 2018.

• REC name

  East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  17/EM/0088

• Date of REC Opinion

  10 Mar 2017

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion