Dialogic reading with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) kindergarteners: Does reading with parents or siblings enhance their language development?

Abstract

Dialogic reading (DR) is an interactive reading approach that enhances the language development of children. This study aims to extend DR to the shared reading context involving children with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their older siblings and to examine the effects of DR with parents/siblings on the language development of Chinese children with ADHD. This study included 850 Chinese kindergarteners with ADHD and their parents/older siblings. These children were pretested on their Chinese receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, character reading, listening comprehension, and reading interest and were randomly assigned to four groups, namely, dialogic reading with parents (PR-DR), dialogic reading with siblings (SR-DR), parent reading control (PR-C), and sibling reading control (SR-C). After a 12-week intervention period, they were posttested on the same measures. Results show that both DR with parents and siblings effectively enhanced language skills and reading interest in children with ADHD. In addition, those children who read with their older siblings demonstrated greater improvements in their expressive vocabulary, character reading skills, morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and reading interest yet achieved a smaller growth in their listening comprehension compared with those who read with their parents. These findings showed the positive effects of DR on the language development of children with ADHD and highlight the importance of involving siblings in home literacy activities to facilitate the language development of these children.

Effects of dialogic reading elements on children's language development

“…The results of this work are consistent with those of previous empirical PEER studies, which concluded that DR enhanced young children's language and reading interest development (Dong et al, 2023). In the present study, the PEER sequence asked by parents enhanced their children's language and reading interest development.…”

“…A total of 30 trained research assistants who obtained a master's degree in psychology provided detailed elaboration to the caregivers if they expressed confusion with the instructor's words. These 30 research assistants received professional DR technique training from researchers and had experience as research assistants in a previous DR design (Dong et al, 2023).…”

“…In addition, the relationship between educator and learner has been shown to moderate the final language learning outcomes of DR (e.g., Sun, 2014;What Works Clearinghouse, 2020). The current literature also suggests that children's language learning outcomes are affected by educators' vocabulary, reading comprehension (e.g., Dong et al, 2023) and the degree of intimacy relationship between educators and children (e.g., Dong et al, 2023;Schachter et al, 2016;van Bergen et al, 2017).…”

“…DR includes both prompts and feedback components and is considered one of the typical reading activities for early childhood language learning. DR aims to improve children's understanding of the contents of books they read by increasing their cognitive engagement levels (Dong et al, 2023; Noble et al, 2019). Many studies have reported that DR benefits young children's language and reading interest development.…”

“…Dialogic reading (DR) with young children promotes their early language and reading interest development (Barak & Lefstein, 2022; Dong et al, 2023; Grolig et al, 2020). By engaging in dialogue with young children through multiple interactive question‐and‐answer communication whilst reading together, these children become storytellers and learn how to actively talk about stories (Barak & Lefstein, 2022; Kennedy & McLoughlin, 2023; Wall et al, 2022).…”