A Parental mHealth Resource Targeting Emergent Literacy: An Experimental Study

Scheepers, Cornelia; Eccles, Renata; Abdoola, Shabnam; Graham, Marien Alet; Linde, Jeannie van der

doi:10.1007/s10643-020-01052-6

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 36 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Elizabeth le Roux (main author) and Cornelia Scheepers (main author of a seperate paper), used the ELLA protocol where the first author focused on the participants' language abilities and the latter focused on the literacy abilities (Scheepers et al 2021). A randomised controlled trial (RCT) design was used to determine the effect of a parent mHealth resource targeting language skills, specifically vocabulary word definitions, fictional narratives, mean length utterance (MLU) and type token ratio (TTR) as part of the expressive language, in 4-to 5-year-old children.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of a parental mHealth resource on language outcomes in 4- to 5-year-old children

Roux

Eccles

Abdoola

et al. 2022

South African Journal of Childhood Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: The use of mobile health (mHealth) technology is rapidly expanding in healthcare worldwide. mHealth tools may provide parents with access to resources essential for promoting language development.Aim: The current study aimed to determine how an mHealth parental resource influenced 42 preschool children’s (4.0–5.11 months old) language abilities after a 17-week intervention period.Setting: Participants were identified from six early childhood development (ECD) centres from a low-income community in Tshwane, South Africa.Method: A randomised controlled trial (RCT), pre-test post-test research design was employed to determine whether an mHealth parental resource influenced 42 preschool children’s (4.0–5.11 months old) language abilities after a 17-week intervention period. Data were collected using the language subtests of a South African standardised protocol, the Emergent Literacy and Language Assessment Protocol (ELLA).Results: The parental mHealth application targeting language stimulation did not significantly improve the experimental group’s language outcomes when compared with the control group because most of the parents (n = 27) used the application for less than 20% of the active days.Conclusion: Providing parents with more support with mobile resources may lead to improved usage of the application.

show abstract

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of a parental mHealth resource on language outcomes in 4- to 5-year-old children

Roux

Eccles

Abdoola

et al. 2022

South African Journal of Childhood Education

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Helping Parents Support Their Preschool Children’s Learning and Development Through SMS Messages: An Australian Pilot Study

Simoncini

McKechnie

Hilly

et al. 2023

Early Childhood Educ J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Families are children’s first and most important teachers. However, their ability to support children’s learning and development at home varies due to knowledge, skills, and confidence. Family interventions aimed at increasing parents’ skills are labour-intensive and expensive. In contrast, text messages are low-cost and scalable. Text messages can provide bite-sized bits of information that remind parents of activities they can do in their everyday lives to support learning. Our pilot study replicated two studies from the United States of America (USA) using text messages to increase children’s language and literacy development. A mixed methods approach comprising a pre- to post-design and survey was used. Approximately 70 families with preschool children in the Australian Capital Territory received three text messages weekly for 18 weeks. Families were randomly assigned to either the language and literacy group or the control group that received general child development messages. Measurement of the impact of text messages on children’s language and literacy skills was not feasible due to COVID-19 constraints. We were able to measure parent knowledge and perceptions of the pilot project pre- and post-text messages. Parent knowledge in both groups moved in the right direction, and approximately 90% of parents reported that the text messages were useful and would recommend the program to other parents. Parents found both sets of texts equally valuable. Our study included highly educated and high-income families, while previous research in the USA were comprised of disadvantaged families. Our findings suggest that text messages about early language and literacy, and general child development are useful to all families.

show abstract

Meta-Analyses and Narrative Review of Home-Based Interventions to Improve Literacy and Mathematics Outcomes for Children Between the Ages of 3 and 5 Years Old

Cahoon,

Jiménez Lira,

Estévez Pérez

et al. 2023

Review of Educational Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of these meta-analyses was to examine the effectiveness of home-based interventions aimed at improving literacy and mathematics outcomes for preschool-age children (mean age = 4.29 years; range = 3.07–5.32 years) and to develop an understanding of what home-based interventions work in different contexts. A total of 32 studies met the inclusion criteria for these meta-analyses; 30 studies included sufficient data for inclusion in the meta-analyses, and two studies did not contain sufficient quantitative data and instead were summarized in a narrative review. The average weighted effect size for interventions with literacy (d = 0.10; CI = [−0.17, 0.38]; n = 27) and mathematical outcomes (d = 0.18; CI = [−1.62, 1.99]; n = 8) were minimal. Hence, these meta-analyses showed that home-based interventions had minimal effect on literacy and mathematical outcomes for preschoolers. There were more home-based interventions with literacy (N = 28) than mathematical outcomes (N = 10). The heterogeneity showed no variability, indicating that all intervention impacted on children’s outcomes to similar effect. Overall, many interventions were relatively light touch (i.e., time spent engaging in parent training), and the engagement requirement of the parent in some studies was minimal (e.g., reading a short text message). More in-depth research into the components of interventions (e.g., focus, training approaches) and evaluation of interventions before they are implemented is essential for ensuring that early interventions will be effective and lead to the development of the intended skills.

show abstract

A Parental mHealth Resource Targeting Emergent Literacy: An Experimental Study

Cited by 3 publications

References 36 publications

The effect of a parental mHealth resource on language outcomes in 4- to 5-year-old children

The effect of a parental mHealth resource on language outcomes in 4- to 5-year-old children

Helping Parents Support Their Preschool Children’s Learning and Development Through SMS Messages: An Australian Pilot Study

Meta-Analyses and Narrative Review of Home-Based Interventions to Improve Literacy and Mathematics Outcomes for Children Between the Ages of 3 and 5 Years Old

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About