Impacts of a shared book‐reading intervention for Italian‐speaking children with developmental language disorder

Abstract

Background The regular practice of shared book reading (SBR) at home may play a key role in fostering the linguistic development of children with developmental language disorder (DLD). However, more evidence is needed of the benefits of home‐based SBR interventions on the parents’ conversational strategies and on the communicative and linguistic production of children with DLD. Aims To examine the impacts of a parent‐based SBR intervention on the parent's use of conversational strategies, and on the engagement, conversational participation and linguistic production of Italian‐speaking children with DLD. The mothers trained in the use of SBR strategies were expected to increase their use of these strategies. The children were expected to show gains in their level of engagement and conversational participation during SBR; in turn, moderate increments of the indices of language production were expected. Methods & Procedures Thirty‐two preschool children with DLD participated in the study; all were receiving speech language therapy. Using a non‐randomized pre‐post‐test control trial, 20 mother–child dyads implemented an 8‐week SBR programme (the SBR intervention group), while 12 dyads acted as a comparison group. Based on the ‘dialogic reading’ method, eight verbal and non‐verbal SBR strategies were employed during individual and small‐group parent training sessions. Speech–language therapists were involved in the individual parent training sessions to provide suggestions focused on the specific characteristics of each mother–child dyad. Measures of parents’ intervention strategies, children's engagement, conversational participation and oral language were included. Outcomes & Results At post‐test, mothers in the SBR intervention group used three of the eight SBR strategies—Shared Book Handling, Captivating Talking, and Utterances with a familiar topic—significantly more than the comparison group. Children whose mothers implemented the intervention showed significant gains in terms of time spent in engagement and amount of verbal production during shared reading. No effects were found for the children's communicative initiatives and answers, or for indices of language complexity and diversity. Conclusions & Implications The present parent‐based SBR intervention for Italian‐speaking preschoolers with DLD showed effects, albeit modest, on both maternal and child communicative behaviours. The results suggest that extralinguistic strategies may be implemented successfully by parents and may be effective in enhancing children's engagement and language production in the short term. Further investigations are needed that provide a longer intervention period and examine the joint impact of therapist‐ and parent‐based intervention for children with DLD.

Efficacy, model of delivery, intensity and targets of pragmatic interventions for children with developmental language disorder: A systematic review

“…Except for Lavelli et al. (2019), dose frequency and total intervention duration were the most consistently reported data about dosage across the analysed studies. Dose frequency ranged from once to four times per week.…”

“…Significant short‐term benefits were observed in two studies (Abdul Aziz et al., 2016; van Kleeck et al., 2006) however, the consolidation period was very short (8–12 weeks). Half of the included studies (five studies: Allen & Marshall, 2011; Kelley et al., 2015; Kramer et al., 2009; Lavelli et al., 2019; Wilcox et al., 2011) did not have a follow‐up period, meaning they did not assess the retention of knowledge and skills acquired during the intervention.

RQ2a: What were the targets of the pragmatic interventions?

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“…In Van Kleeck et al (2006), children participated in individual 15-min shared bookreading sessions twice per week with graduate and undergraduate research assistants from programmes in communication sciences and disorders. In some interventions, for example, that by Lavelli et al (2019), parental responsiveness was combined with dialogic reading, that is, parents were first explicitly taught conversation strategies after which they applied them in the reading sessions with their child. Interventions that focused on narrative skills mostly measured various elements on the microstructure level (five papers: Fey et al, 2010;Kelley et al, 2015;Wake et al, 2013Wake et al, , 2015Wilcox et al, 2011) and quite rarely elements on the macrostructure level, for example, Joffe et al (2019) and Kramer et al (2009).…”

“…All these aspects were highly variable among the studies. The total number of intervention sessions ranged from four (e.g., Allen & Marshall, 2011;Kramer et al, 2009) to 32 (Lavelli et al, 2019). In two studies (Kelley et al, 2015;…”

“…Since TELL was part of the curriculum, it was offered four times weekly with 150 min of instruction scheduled every day. In four studies (Fey et al, 2010;Kelley et al, 2015;Kramer et al, 2009;Lavelli et al, 2019) no information was reported about session length. Except for Lavelli et al (2019), dose frequency and total intervention duration were the most consistently reported data about dosage across the analysed studies.…”