A Parent-Implemented Language Intervention for Late Talkers: An Exploratory Study on Low-Risk Preterm and Full-Term Children

Abstract

Parent-implemented language interventions have been used for children with expressive language delays, but no study has yet been carried out using this intervention for low-risk preterm children. The current study examined the effect of a parent-implemented dialogic book reading intervention, determining also whether the intervention differently impacted low-risk preterm and full-term children. Fifty 31-month-old late talkers with their parents participated; 27 late talkers constituted the intervention group, and 23 constituted the control group. The overall results indicated that more children in the intervention group showed partial or full recovery of their lexical expressive delay and acquired the ability to produce complete sentences relative to the control group. Concerning full-term late talkers, those in the intervention group showed a higher daily growth rate of total words, nouns, function words, and complete sentences, and more children began to produce complete sentences relative to those in the control group. Concerning low-risk preterm late talkers, children in the intervention group increased their ability to produce complete sentences more than those in the control group. We conclude that a parent-focused intervention may be an effective, ecological, and cost-effective program for improving expressive lexical and syntactic skills of full-term and low-risk preterm late talkers, calling for further studies in late talkers with biological vulnerabilities.

The Effects of a Parent-Implemented Language Intervention on Late-Talkers’ Expressive Skills: The Mediational Role of Parental Speech Contingency and Dialogic Reading Abilities

“…Secondly, we investigated the effects of the intervention on children's advances in language development. A significant increase of expressive lexicon in children's spontaneous speech, as regards lexical and grammatical measures, was expected as suggested by previous works that documented the efficacy of the same intervention on measures of children's lexical and grammatical skills collected through parental reports (Bello et al, 2019;Zuccarini et al, 2020). We hypothesized that this effect was triggered by parental input improvement determined by the intervention.…”

“…The first regards the nature of speech data collected as both parental and children speech measures were computed through a fine-grained analysis of the sessions’ transcripts using a set of software specifically developed for such a complex material. Differently from other works in the field parents’ total responses, reformulations and reading style were computed directly from the transcript and not assessed by using rating scales or global evaluations ( Kruythoff-Broekman et al, 2019 ), and the same occurred for the analysis of child’s spontaneous speech ( Zuccarini et al, 2020 ). Another relevant strength regards the selected data analysis strategy and, in particular, the inclusion of models testing the direct and indirect effects of the parent-implemented intervention on children’s advances in lexical and grammatical skills.…”

“…Child’s expressive vocabulary was assessed with the Words and Sentences Complete Form of the Italian MB-CDI ( Caselli et al, 2015 ), that is a valid and reliable tool to investigate child lexical production and grammatical skills, as indicated by its widespread use in clinical contexts and empirical studies ( Sansavini et al, 2019 ; Majorano et al, 2020 ; Zuccarini et al, 2020 ).…”

Special Issue: Preterm Birth: Research, Intervention and Developmental Outcomes

“…Indeed, in the first year at home, the parents of children born in Sweden report prolonged worries for the child and their own emotional state, and they appreciated a post-discharge home-visiting program to support parent–child interaction and encourage well-being for parents and children [ 17 ]. A second study analyses the effect of a parent dialogic book reading intervention in a sample of late talkers, revealing the efficacy of the intervention in improving expressive lexical and syntactic skills in both full-term and low-risk preterm children (<37 weeks of gestation) between two and three years of age [ 18 ]. Concerning low-risk preterm late talkers, the intervention impacts mainly on their emergent syntactic skills [ 18 ].…”

“…A second study analyses the effect of a parent dialogic book reading intervention in a sample of late talkers, revealing the efficacy of the intervention in improving expressive lexical and syntactic skills in both full-term and low-risk preterm children (<37 weeks of gestation) between two and three years of age [ 18 ]. Concerning low-risk preterm late talkers, the intervention impacts mainly on their emergent syntactic skills [ 18 ].…”